Have you talked about forces in school yet? If so, you are in luck because we are about to talk a lot about forces.
Boats float because water pushes up on the bottom of the boat. You also know another force that affects boats: gravity. Gravity pushes down on boats while water pushes up.
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You may hear about Archimedes Principle. Over 2000 years ago, Archimedes found a simple way to figure out if boats float. It has three steps:
- Determine the weight of the boat.
- Determine the weight of the water the boat moves out of the way.
- If the water weighs less than the boat, then it will sink.
This relationship also shows that if a boat is floating, then it moves exactly that weight of water away.
Here is a great video that shows this relationship and its interesting history.
In FLEET, you can see the forces of gravity and forces of buoyancy whenever your ship is on the water.
