Hobby Engineering?

I live in a house with four growing boys, which means we drink a lot of milk. I received criticism when I came home midweek with two more gallons of milk only to respond that it is not that absurd; we drank all that milk inside of two days... I suppose you are asking now "but Gary, what are you doing with all those empty milk jugs?"

That is a fair question. Even when we crush the jugs, it still filled our recycling bin fairly quickly, so I came up with the great alternative to use them in a wild project. After running a quick and dirty calculation, I determined we would need 200 milk jugs to form the main buoyant support for a raft. A raft made from recycled materials.

At this very moment hanging from a hook in the kitchen is a string of 15 jugs. Threaded by the handle onto stringers, twenty ranks of ten jugs each will support a deck composed of recycled Styrofoam sheets sandwiched in layers of cardboard. The entire deck area will be sealed with marine grade epoxy, the only part not already used or salvaged. Rigidity will be achieved through skirts made of scrap lumber from the back yard.

This will merely be an exercise in utilizing recycled materials as the finished product will have hydrodynamic drag too high to be fast or maneuverable. It should float just fine though. And it should support a half ton load.