Jet Scow Project

My goal was to make a remote control watercraft, and to show other people how it works.

In this picture I am designing the hull of my boat using the web-based program Tinkercad. I designed the boat this way because this is a simple and surprisingly fast and stable design of hull. This design is a well-known design called a scow.

Next is a wiring design I made using a downloadable program called Fritzing. These are designs of the wiring on the boat that controls the steering and the motor. One of them is a breadboard style of design and the other is a schematic.

This is the math I used to calculate the angles that the corrugated plastic would be cut at, and below is me cutting the plastic. 

I used the Pythagorean Theorem to find the distances of the sloped sides.

I used corrugated plastic because it is flexible and light, but once you reinforce the shape, it stiffens up.

Above I am testing the motor to see if my control scheme works.

Below I am installing the steering servo.

A servo is a motor that can move very slowly and can stay in one spot. They are extremely controllable, but they can often only move for 120⁰ in one direction. These are often used for steering or other things you need fine controls for.

In this picture, I am mounting the servo through a hole in the fan support. The fan is spun by a separate motor that sounds like a jet engine when it is running.

I got the fan and the fan controller for $40 on Amazon. It is a 1.5 lb EDF, or Electric Ducted Fan, and is blowing into a small duct made from a piece of tapered pipe I had laying around.

This is a picture of the finished boat with the most important part. That is, of course, the spoiler.

The spoiler is completely useless. I added it because it looks cool.

Below is a video of me testing the boat at the pond near the parking lot at Blue Mountain.

I learned that having the weight of a boat too far forwards can slow the boat down a lot, and that geese do not like high pitched whines from small white boxes. The boat was surprisingly fast.