NewBoatDrone Mk1: Getting My Feet Wet
Intro
If you are anything like me then you have an ever-growing collection of damaged drone parts. Sometimes those parts accumulate back into a drone, but there are always a few leftovers…
The goal of this project was to use up some extra parts and build something fun. Because we will only use two motors you can easily repurpose an FC with a damaged ESC (such as a BeeBrainBL that someone accidentally crashed into water one too many times, which I found gloriously ironic).
This is a good time to mention that this whole project is ill-advised, water and electronics don’t mix, don’t try this at home!
Mk1
The very first attempt was delightfully clever, because the whole construction was a single 3D print without any support or infill, it was also very not-clever because it was garbage and barely floated.
I really wanted to give it the cute “chibi” look that I associate with whoops, and of course I wanted to feature the Goober canopy as a design element, unfortunately it was simply too heavy and sat way too low in the water to work as an airboat. I don’t even have any pictures of it on the water, presumably due to my disappointment.
So cute! If only it worked…
The effort on Mk1 wasn’t wasted though, because it proved to be a great platform to get the differential thrust mix configured, and do a bit of preliminary tuning. The little airboat actually ran rather nicely on hard smooth flooring and was fun to drive, if a little loud!
The parts used in this iteration where
1202 8000kv motors (it might be worth trying 11k motors on 1S)
Avan Rush 2.5 Props (excellent thrust to noise ratio!)
3D Printed Body (I don’t really recommend building this one, but you could if you want to play on the ground)
Silicone Coating (for water-proofing, but again, I don’t recommend you try this with good hardware, eventually you will fry something. I did)