Cool Science Experiments – Make Your Own Remote Controlled Boat

We all liked to play with toys in our younger days (though some kids never grow up) and so will our children hanker after them. It is quite a simple thing to spend some money and buy them a nice toy which isn’t bad either but I have a better idea which will make them learn a few basic principles of electricity, physics as well as given them the joy of doing something very important on their own with this cool science experiment.

There could be even more interesting toys such as building radio controlled choppers, but that is bit of an advanced work so better do not toy around with that idea, at least not now. I have outlined the steps to build a remote controlled boat rather, which should be equally exciting as well.

Materials Required

Well I must say that the materials required for building this toy may not be found in your wardrobe store. You might have to visit your nearest electrical/electronics shop for the same but then Rome was never built in a day – neither is our boat. Just make sure you have the following at hand before you set yourself to this task:

• Two small D.C. electric motors
• Wiring of at least 2 different colours
• Two batteries compatible with the above motors
• Two propellers (see below for further description)
• Two on-off switches
• Cello tape/Quick-fix/scissors/pliers etc
• A wooden platform of preferable square rectangular shape
• A small tub filled with water to act as the river/sea

I suggest you take a look at the handmade diagram below and correlate it to this procedure and you will find it much easy to complete the process.

• The wooden platform just needs to be around the size of an A5 sheet (could be say around 10cm by 15 cm which isn’t the standard A5 size though). Fix the two electric motors on the end with their rotating shafts pointing outward from the platform and you can use quick-fix, nails or anything you like to make sure they do not move from their positions.

• Fix the batteries somewhere toward the front (exact position could be different from the picture) in such a manner that the platform has nearly equal distribution of weight so that it does not tilt in either direction when placed in water. You might have to experiment a bit with this and use your intuition/common sense.

• The wiring for the two motors needs to be fixed, and I have used different colors to show the wiring for both motors. The thick black lead which comes out of the platform toward the remote control actually depicts that all four wires have been wound together using cello tape for sake of smoothness. The four wires are connected to two on-off switches on the remote control, which could be just a piece of cardboard or whatever you like.

• Fix the propellers onto the motors and these could either be removed from any old motor boat toys that you have. You can use any fan type object which has a small hole of insertion into the motor shaft. You might have to struggle around a bit with this, but then that’s DIY is all about – learning by doing.

• Lift the boat in air and check for the operation of both motors, one by one. Then, place the boat in the tub of water. You can turn on both motors and the boat should go straight if you have fixed both propellers at appropriate distances from the center. When you switch off one of the motors, the boat takes either a left turn or a right turn depending on your position.

• You can also make an addition by making the motors turn both ways by using three-way switches and an extra wire for each motor, so that you can also reverse your boat, but I leave it to you to decide and implement the same.

This might seem to be a bit of a difficult task, but I can assure you that once you complete it successfully, not only will you enjoy watching your own boat go around in water, it would be a big boost to your confidence as well, and perhaps that is one of the main goals of learning skills.