Our project was initially to make an FPV, or first person view, remote control car. After we got all of the materials we needed including a coke bottle RC car, FPV googles, and an FPV camera, we realized that we could put all of the components together very quickly and we needed something more challenging. We then came up with the idea to make a 3D printed boat shell and then use the FPV system that we incorporated into the car and put it on the boat. We also needed to make the boat into a mini motor boat my attaching a small coreless motor.
After going to Maker Fair earlier in the month, both of us had seen a very cool underwater drone that had taken some outstanding underwater footage. We were inspired by that and we wanted to make a smaller machine that operated somewhat like it having the camera underwater and it being remote control.
On of the problems that we ran into was connecting the FPV camera to the FPV googles. This was something that both of us had not done before and neither of us had much experience in signals and frequencies. We had to trouble shoot by switching different channels on the FPV camera (there are many) and fiddling with the small camera itself. We eventually found a battery that seemed to give the proper amount of power to the camera and then found a channel that worked as well.
One of the main things that we learned was how hard it can be to make extremely intricate machinery. We were trying to make a simple motor boat with an FPV camera attached and it was very challenging. Imagine trying to make a commuter or something! We also gained a deeper respect for people that work underwater because everything that they use has to be either sealed or water proof or something else which can be very difficult. When we were preparing the boat to have enough space for everything, we got a hole in the boat and then it would not float. We had to think quickly and patch the hole with wood glue. Things like that might go wrong all the time underwater and they have to be quick thinking and one their toes.
If we had more time on this project, we would have wanted to make the boat bigger and get a bigger motor so that the boat would be more durable and bigger. Some advice that we would give to people that would like to do something like this in the future would be to make a layout plan with all of the electrical connections and the layout of the boat before you start to avoid any confusion while assembling to final product.
The Project Costs:
FPV googles- $72.00
FPV camera- $15.99
Coreless motor- $9.99
This is where we got the idea of using FPV: here
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