EGN 1007C Great Naval Orange Race Boat Design

Who knew, out of some two liters, cardboard, Duct Tape, and an electric motor that powers an airplane propellor, you can make a device that will carry an orange across a body of water.

Hull Design: For the race, we start in Lane 8, so we decided to "ride the wall" of the UCF fountain. For our hull, we used 6 two-liters (three complete two-liters inside the fronts of the three others). To connect them and everything else, we just used Duct Tape. A cardboard box houses the electric motor, naval orange, and battery source.

Aerodynamics: To our surprise, wind effected the boat dramatically, so we closed the box that holds the business of our project simply by placing a lid on top of it all, one that is angled down for the best result. We even constructed a little spoiler for laughs. You'll see in the video.

Steering: The hardest part of the project is the fact that we couldn't use remote control. Thus, we fixed the rudder in a position to force the boat up against the wall (this way, if something happens due to a pump, wind gust, or deficiency in the concrete wall of the fountain, the boat will correct itself in its path). Basically, like I said before, we are going to ride the wall the entire way.

Power Source: Four D-Cell batteries are a safe bet, probably too safe, but the weight doesn't matter much. These batteries power a small electric motor which turns a propellor (these you can find at any local hobby shop). It's very simple; we hooked a switch up between the batteries and the electric motor so that we could easily turn the prop on or off.

MEMBERS: Charles Andrews (Me), Eric Boehm, Kyle Underwood, Sidhi Narine, Michael Wingate

Overview: We calculated its average velocity to be about 2 ft/s which is a steady pace of about 3.3 mph. This will get the little vessel around the UCF Fountain in about 2 minutes time on a day with mediocre wind and some already used D-Cell batteries.