Functionality or style?

That was the question that faced Lampeter-Strasburg (L-S) High School science students during the annual Cardboard Boat Regatta, which was held on May 26 at the Lampeter-Strasburg YMCA's outdoor pool.

Students were tasked to make a boat out of cardboard and duct tape, no longer or wider than three "cubes" or cardboard boxes. They were also asked to decorate their boats with a theme, then write and perform a "sea shanty" that went along with their theme.

Some teams, like The Black Pearl (Isaiah Jones, Cole Shehan and Lilah Schwartz), went with functionality. The Black Pearl, with a hastily drawn pirate skull on the side of their boat and an edited version of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" theme song as their sea shanty, completed the 50-yard race in only about 40 seconds, the fastest time of the morning.

"We don't need a good theme when we have a good boat," Jones said.

Students were judged in four categories: song/cheer, distance, design and construction. They were awarded anywhere from three to 10 points in each category, depending on their performance. Off-duty teachers made up most of the judges.

The Black Pearl's strategy for their boat construction was simple. "We built it as big as we were allowed to," said Shehan.

Other teams were more creative with their designs. Perry the Platyboat (Emerson Holsinger, Shrey Singh, Kayla Downing and Gavin Elias-Lizardo) designed its boat to mirror the iconic character from the Disney Channel animated series "Phineas and Ferb," while team Lightning McQueen (Landry Maines, Marianne Gomez-Marquez and Kyle Wagner) thought that racetrack speed would translate into the water.

Perhaps nobody combined speed and style like The Banana Boat (Ryan McClune, Lucy Harris, Addison Jones and Jeremy Mejia), which had a banana-shaped boat and team members adorned in monkey costumes for the duration of the races. The team finished shortly behind The Black Pearl and also won the "Best in Show" award.

The event gives L-S's Advanced Placement (AP) science students something meaningful and fun to do following the conclusion of College Board exams each spring. Students from each team were made up of students from the school's AP chemistry, AP biology and AP physics classes. The whole project lasts for about two weeks.

Team George Washington (Greg Eckert, Titus Lingerfelter, Ludanine Lozada and Asher Reno) won the award for the best sea shanty, while team Moana (Harry Skiles, Rylee Diller, Jaleigh Gore and Riley Lefever) received the Titanic award, sinking in instantaneous fashion.

Jack Kirchner, Carlos Berrios and Micah White also competed as team Mamma Mia, while Maria Glick, Gannon Black, Madelyn Knudsen and Ian Havey made up The Mermaids. Finally, Jacky Yang, Sigey Bett, Taline Al Kurdi and Prem Savani raced as The Aliens.