But then that raises the question, if God can bend the laws of physics to fit all the animals on the Ark and keep them fed, why bother with an ark in the first place? Why not teleport them to the future when the flood was over or something?Keep in mind that the Noah story involved divine intervention. So getting the animals back and forth to where the need to be, keep them fed, safe, etc. would be a trivial matter for a God who created the entire universe.
Part of the Noah story was God giving Noah the task to preach the word and build the ark. Construction was a long on-going process. Noah tried to preach to the people but they were unresponsive. The construction of the ark also served as a way of preaching, people would see what's going on for all that time and know why Noah was doing it and know what choice they had. They still didn't believe him though. That was the point of God's assignment to Noah. The flood was just the end result of his main task.
It's essentially a preview of what was to happen when Jesus arrived. Preaching would occur, people would have the opportunity to repent and follow God, and eventually the wicked would be destroyed leaving only the righteous behind.