Duct-tape boat regatta

Teams from Nevada Middle School’s Mythbusters program race homemade cardboard boats across the pool at the Walton Family Aquatic Center Monday morning.

The Nevada Middle School Mythbusters class took to the water at Walton Family Aquatic Center for their 21st annual duct-tape boat race Monday morning.

Instructor Julie West said she had almost 80 students this summer spread across a morning and afternoon session. They split off into 17 teams that each constructed a cardboard and duct-tape boat.

Parker Dennison, Emma Claspill, Harrison Reed and Issac Shipp won both the session one speed test with a time of 2:17 and the overall Titanic test staying afloat for 98 minutes before sinking.

Lotus Van Dyk, Rilynn Miller, Blaze Van Dyk and Baylor Pritchett won the session two speed test with a time of 2:15.

Sarah Jones, Susannah Guenther, Reese Hedges, James Somers, and Kara Phillips won the session two Titanic test with a time afloat of 85 minutes before sinking.

Each boat typically takes between four and 10 rolls of duct-tape to build.

This is the 21st year for the program now called Mythbusters. It was previously known by at least two other names including Teching it to the Limit under the original Practical Technology Education teacher Bill Goodson.

“Last year Amanda Pollock, Rachel Hardin and myself combined to teach a summer school class and decided to call it Mythbusters since people usually don’t believe us that it is even possible to build the boats when we tell them about the project, let alone how long some of the boats last,” West said in 2016.