‘This is the best science class they have ever had’

Cheering from the stands, large-scale boats in the water, and oars splashing tested eighth grade Princeton Middle School students engineering skills during the 2026 PMS Cardboard Boat Regatta.

The Princeton Middle School (PMS) Eighth Grade Cardboard Boat Regatta, which races cardboard boats designed and constructed by students, has been an annual tradition at PMS for 11 years as the school year comes to a close each June.

“As you can see this is the best science class they have ever had. They are engaged, enthusiastic, and excited even if the boat goes down,” said Janet Gaudino, a science teacher at PMS and an organizer of the event.

“I want the students to leave with a can-do attitude. They can enter high school knowing that the sky’s the limit, and they can all do science in one way or the other. The goal is that everyone leaves loving science.”

Inside the PMS Pool Center is where teams of eighth graders put their designed and constructed cardboard boats and oars to the test to see whether their boats cannot just last across the pool with students in them but beat each other with speed.

Each year, the regatta is a culmination of the eighth-grade students’ studies on motion and energy, according to Gaudino.

“We start right after Spring Break with some crew training. We teach them about Archimedes’ principle, center of gravity, and about drag and stability,” she said.

“This is our fourth quarter engineering challenge and is meant to be a capstone project that ties everything together that we learned in our physics unit. Everything about forces of motion and Newton’s laws.”

They do about a week of training. Then students decide if they want to engage in engineering design for the large-scale boat.

“All students build boats. We actually have a second regatta. It is a small boat regatta,” Gaudino added.

“All students had to engineer a small boat as well. So basically, we have two classrooms that we work between. It is 15 full school days that they have to work and build these boats.”

PMS science teachers William Merritt, Jen Simon, and Gaudino had their eighth grade students perform experiments on their boat and oar designs before they were ready to go into the water on regatta race day.

When those test experiments had been verified, the students were then able to move forward on the construction of both large-scale boats that were to be filled with teams of students and miniature, self-propelled sailing vessels.

“The engineers design the large-scale boat and then we start trading off,” Gaudino said.

“So, some of the engineers that started on the big boats trade with some of small boat designers who then start working on the large boats. Everyone gets their hands on everything, so they really have a chance to experience what it’s like to engineer on a large-scale and small-scale.”

Gaudino explained how class-elected project managers led their classmates in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics (STEAM) committee work to support their team which included paddle construction, artistic design, and team spirit.

“As far as the decor goes that is the piece of STEAM I really love. Students get to add in their art with their science,” she shared. “Our artistic students have a chance to shine.”

The regatta is able to occur through a funded grant provided by the Princeton Education Foundation.

“This is a project they work on for several weeks. The regatta is the culmination of how well their design holds up,” said Jason Burr, principal of Princeton Middle School.

“I think this teaches a little something, too, about there is not always [being] instant gratification. It all builds to this moment, and the smiles tell you everything.”

On regatta race day in large-scale boats, teams of four students, using constructed paddles, raced against one another to see who won and which boat was best constructed. 

“This is a six-to-seven-week test of what you can design to be the last boat standing. Everyone will remember this when they graduate high school, when they tell their friends in college and their own kids,” Burr said.

“You would think that everybody would be the one fighting to be the one in the boat. Believe it or not, we had several students express they really invested in being the ones to cheer on their friends. So, there were students who gave up that chance to be in a boat because they wanted to be in support of their teammates.”

The pool center filled with students who cheered, held up signs, and chanted for their teams. They watched from around the pool and from the gallery above. 

Some students wore costume hats for their teams such as Nemo and Dory, Spider-Man, Cat in the Hat, and Monsters Inc. 

In the final races that day, teams had to race each other around two pool floaties in separate areas of the PMS pool.

The teams had to race around each other before reaching the end of the race. Some boats stalled as the students couldn’t get them around the floating pool, as the boats finally broke down or were starting to. 

At the end of the regatta, all the boats filled with students raced each other in the water, as they were squirted with water from fellow students and teachers. 

Every one of the students with bathing suits on would jump in the pool at the end. 

“Projects like this are essential to student learning because, in today’s world of technology and getting so absorbed in their own being, this is an opportunity for them to work as a team,” Gaudino said.

“They have to work as a team and they have to collaborate. They cannot survive this project unless they work together.”