RC Hovercraft

I decided to start this project as I realized with my previous drone project that I couldn’t fully test a vehicle that flies in an apartment setting due to safety concerns, but I still wanted to work with motors and propellers. A hovercraft stays on the ground while still utilizing the force of propellers. A hovercraft is a vehicle that has an inflatable material on the bottom called a skirt that allows it to glide on the floor.

This project only took me about two weeks, which is astoundingly fast compared to my previous projects in this realm. I attribute this speed not only to its similarity to the drone project but also to the trials and errors and learnings I gained from the drone project. Essentially, I had each individual component figured out already, so I could reuse a lot of code I had already created in addition to some pieces of hardware. One huge learning that I was able to apply to this project from the drone and the other Arduino projects was the importance of pre-planning. After my drone project, I understood the value of having a complete model before starting to 3D print. This meant that I didn’t have to go through many different printed prototypes because of silly measurement mistakes. However, this doesn’t mean that I didn’t experiment with different shapes and styles.

One of my earlier design ideas for the main body

The final main body design I went with, principally for logistical reasons in terms of printability despite its rather boring look. However, the previous design was more aesthetic.

In addition, this was the first project where I fully fletched out all of the wiring in advance, even before having some of the components on hand.

With all of this done, I simply had to attach a plastic bag to the bottom to create the skirt once all the pieces were put together and the project was complete. However, the plastic bag was the most challenging part of the entire project. I had to go through many different shapes and sizes to get it to properly inflate, attaching it in a different way each time. I finally found a skirt design that worked. Even then, it wasn’t perfect and was not fully stable. One issue that contributed to the skirt’s issues was the balance of weight in the hovercraft. The entire vehicle was very heavy in the back and very light in the front, causing the skirt to not properly inflate in the back.

While intense pre-planning combined with insight from previous experience allowed me to get this project done extremely fast, there are still plenty of ways this hovercraft could have been improved:

Remove a motor – As opposed to using two motors for steering, I should’ve used a single motor that turns left and right with the help of a much lighter motor. This change saves a lot of weight.
Alternate placement of the central motor – Currently, this motor is the main reason that the hovercraft appears somewhat bulky. I could’ve placed this motor at the front, balancing the weight of the back motor(s) while allowing me to slim the overall frame.
Going for smaller motors entirely – While using smaller motors would provide less power, this change would be offset by the weight they save.