Pacific Voyagers: designing our waka

This week, we have continued to explore the world of the Pacific voyagers - in preparation for our own voyage to Te Papa in Week 4.

We have inquired into the reasons that people made long, adventurous and sometimes dangerous voyages. We have decided what to pack. Now it's time to think about our waka. We need a vessel that will carry us and our belongings through big waves, over a long distance, to our destination. 

What shape will the waka be? What will it be made from? What materials will we have to choose from? How will it move along? How will it stop? Where will we sit, sleep and cook our food? How easy is it to fix our waka if it gets damaged along the way?

As designers, we had lots of questions, so we did some experiments to test our ideas.

Our floating and sinking experiments helped us to make some choices about what shapes work best for waka, and which materials are best for floating in water and staying strong.

Our drawings of waka also helped us to think about what features our waka would need, such as sails, somewhere to shelter, maybe an anchor.

We had a range of materials from the Crafting Pit available to build our waka with: corrugated cardboard, paper, fabric, straws, string and tape - to name just a few. 

We are proud of our flotilla of boats and are excited to test some of them out in our water tank. 

We plan to do some more waka building. Next time, we will challenge ourselves to use natural materials, similar to those available to the original Pacific voyagers: wood harakeke, palm fibres. After all, raiding the art supplies or going to Uncle Bill's was probably not an option for them! 

Our trip to Te Papa next week will help us to deepen our understanding of Pacific voyager and their waka designs.