Some high school students hit the open water on Friday, but they didn’t get very far.

The 12th Annual Cardboard Boat Regatta took place at the Middle Park Lagoon in Bettendorf.

It’s part of the QC High School Tech Challenge that features a series of STEM events with prizes available.

Students from Bettendorf, Pleasant Valley and North Scott high schools entered the race.

They seemed happy to be part of this “in-the-box” activity.

“I think this is a really fun competition. I’m really happy that our school offers it to students,” said Jaitra Ajgaonkar, a junior at Pleasant Valley High School. “We have the ability to just test out what we actually engineer and not sit in our classroom learning about this stuff and not actually doing them. It was really fun participating, and not only the cardboard boat, but also the trebuchet.”

This year’s theme was “Superheroes.”

Students got into it with their designs, and some of them even wore costumes.