A Grade 3 École Olds Elementary School student built a hovercraft for the school's science fair, which took place Feb. 7.
About 90 projects were entered involving 140 participants. Creators of 30 projects have been invited to move on to the Mountainview Science Fair at Olds High School next month.
Zeke Daigle didn't win and qualify to move on to the regional science fair at Olds High School next month, but he sure got a lot of attention from fellow students.
"It was a little bit crowded," he said during an interview with the Albertan. "One of my friends asked me where my project was and then everybody was like, ‘oh that looks cool,' and then everybody came over. And then when everybody left, another class came, and that was the first thing they saw."
Daigle got the idea for the project earlier this year. It's the third year he's entered a project in the fair.
"My dad was talking about them and then I kind of wanted to make one for the science fair," he said, adding he likes "how it hovers and stuff."
When asked what he made it out of, Daigle said, "wood, Gorilla tape, staples, a shower curtain, a leaf blower."
With help from his dad, Tim, he trimmed the wood with a jigsaw. His mom, Veronica, glued printouts on it. Otherwise, Zeke did all the work himself.
Daigle said it took about "an hour or two" to complete the project. Veronica says they put it together Tuesday night, the night before the fair, because they had to wait for the leaf blower ordered from Amazon to arrive.
She explained it's an electric leaf blower because they couldn't operate a gas-powered one in the school.
Generally, Daigle was happy with his project, but he's thought of at least one way it could be improved.
"There are little gaps under it and air can escape from under those little gaps, so I want to fix those."
Daigle doesn't yet have an idea for next year's science fair, but his mom is confident he'll come up with one.
"He'll keep working on it for next year, because all year he's been talking like, ‘oh maybe this will be a good project for the science fair this year,' so he usually finally figures out what he wants to do. But yeah, he's always thinking about it."
Veronica is an engineer. Tim studied engineering and has done all kinds of different jobs. He's currently with a vehicle customization business.
Veronica figures Zeke gets his interest in science from them.
"He wants to be an astronaut some day so he knows that, yeah, you need to know a lot of science for that," she said.
"My dad was talking about them and then I kind of wanted to make one for the science fair."
ZEKE DAIGLE
