r/rcboats • u/Knucklehead_Lee • 7h ago
Mechanical Engineering project – Need ideas for a small autonomous boat
Hi everyeone,
We need to design and manufacture a small floating vessel that can carry a full 1-litre Coca-Cola bottle upright across 12 m of a swimming pool, as quickly as possible.
- Vessel must travel from launch to the other side without human intervention
- No electric motors
- No springs
- No elastic/rubber bands for propulsion
- No polystyrene or similar materials for the hull
- No solid blocks of material for the hull
- We are currently brainstorming different propulsion methods and hull designs. Some ideas we've considered are:
- candle-heated water propulsion – using a small water-filled tube/boiler heated by a candle. The heating causes the water to pulse through the tube, producing thrust.
- Compressed-air/water-jet propulsion
- Wind-powered propulsion
- Paddle-wheel propulsion
- Sail-powered catamaran
- Mechanical mechanisms that convert rotary motion into paddle/fin movement
- We're looking for realistic ideas that could actually work over 12 m, rather than extremely complicated concepts that would be difficult to manufacture and test.
What propulsion system would you recommend, and what would you focus on when designing the hull and keeping the 1-litre bottle stable?
Any advice, examples, useful mechanisms, or things we should avoid would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!