3D Printing a RC Boat to Cleanup the Oceans? 

My videos tend to do a little better if they get more likes so I’d appreciate that very much! 👍 Also curious for the future: would you prefer 1. The current RU-vid placed ads (5ish ads through the video), or 2. Less youtube ads (one at beginning and one at end) and an integrated sponsorship somewhere in the video (60-90 seconds)?

The plastic which has been collected by the boat could be used to create filament for the 3d printer

Couple of things that could be improved, from a fellow RC enthusiast who also owns multiple 3D printers: 3D prints are not watertight. You WILL have water leaking into your boat if you leave it in the water long enough. It'd be ideal if you sealed the hull using resin or something similar. The net will propably tangle up into the propellers, so I'd move that to the front of the boat and have it run through the middle all the way to the end of the boat. That way your props stay clear of any possible tangles. Print this with ABS, ASA or some other high temperature filament instead of PLA. PLA gets soft at quite low temperatures, it easily deforms under direct sunlight and it's also very brittle, so your spars are quite prone to breaking. Do yourself a favor and get some heatset inserts, it's much stronger than screwing directly into plastic. Just be careful not to get the ones that have vertical ribbing, but the ones that are diagonal. The vertical ones are mainly used for wood, and they're very bad when used with 3D prints. Shift the center of mass forward. On a couple of shots it looked like your boat was super close to taking in water through the rear hatch because it was sitting so low. Move the batteries forward, or move the net forward. This way your boat won't end up being a submarine.

Not only are you Talented with Building and using both sides of your brain, You’re also a good person that cares about our planet… I cannot wait to see what else YOUR CREATIVE MIND WILL COME UP WITH…. Very, wry talented in sooooooooo many ways. Love it 🥰

Combine this with a solar panel, autonomous mission software, and a camera with image recognition software trained to spot trash. This would also make for a cool fish finder drone if you put a sonar scanner on the bottom

Slick boat! I do have a suggestion though: Right now the flat-back hulls drag a large pocket of water around behind them in a low-pressure zone. If you make the keel of each hull narrow back around the motors you would reduce the size of the pocket and also reduce the drag and turbulence it creates.

This guy is becoming the new king of random

If you do a V2 I think it would make a lot of sense to use 2 Liter bottles for the pontoons, probably 4 of them. They're already water tight, about the right size, lighter than PLA hulls while being less likely to break transporting the boat or being in the hot sun and you'd be recycling them which would cut down significantly on the amount of printed plastic in the hulls which would both be more eco friendly and would be less of a project for anyone looking to duplicate. Downsides would be that you'd have to make your propellers external to the bottles and you'd have to store the electronics somewhere other than the hulls. Also in the interest of doing more without wasting as much, you can get replacement nets for pool skimmers and then you wouldn't be throwing away the frame and pole to get the nets. You could probably also use mesh laundry bags for the net which would be cheaper still (they're like 2 or 3 bucks at walmart).

Drew - I just wish I knew more about electronics to understand some of what you talks about but I absolutely love seeing your videos and seeing the unique things you come up with.

I think your video has the clearest description of a project build that I have seen in a long time. The concept is a great one and could definitely be developed further. Great stuff!

You should put a solar panel on top to keep the battery charged

Nice, for the pool skimmer you could add image recognition and pathfinding so it can find the leaves itself!

that sounds like an awesome and fun solution to a bad problem

Thank You Drew for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.... Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste 🙏🏻 😊 ✌ ☮ ❤ 🕊

I have a science fair coming up and I'm going to make a rc boat which cleans the river, like your one! I had a lot of questions about the mechanism and rc transmitter and your video helped a lot. Thank you!

Hey just a little tip for the 3d printing clean up use flush cutters to remove supports and brims/skirts it is much easier. Also instead of getting a longer drive shaft could you angle the shaft down more?

Super inspiring project! Has me thinking about what I can do with my printer too now

this was awesome!!! the only thing id like to suggest would be... MAYBE you could 3D print some sort of basket or cage like piece to protect the props. I think this could help a ton because seeing as this boat was made to help clean... the chances of running over some improperly discarded fishing line are rather high id imagine! I think this would be a good mod to help protect your project and would also be good for folks to have who download your files and print their own to help protect THEIR project.

very good job with solar panel and autonomism it will have a big potencial

To explain the mixes… or try to at least. Each joystick has two axis of movement, each axis represents a channel. We have two joysticks, so we have 4 channels. The switches can also function as channels. Each joystick or switch channel will directly correspond with a channel on the receiver. If we want to control two channels with the output of one channel, we use a mix. In this case, channel 2 was mixed so the receiver would output the same signal to channel 2 and channel 5. Channel 3 is commonly known as the roll(for planes) or yaw channel(boats and cars). We mix channel 3 to so when it is to the right, it outputs a signal to the right motor(the one connected to ch 5), and when the stick is to the left, it sends a signal to ch2. Not sure if this clarified a bunch, but I gave it a shot :) Also great video! Quickly becoming one of my fav creators, got hooked on the ebike trailer build! Z

Your videos are really well made, nice footage, and well explained. For me, i really love the electronic aspect and the process to make these products!

Amazing design dude

I would add a waterproof proximity sensor under the boat to avoid underwater obstacles that could jam the boat.

Wow drew, this is amazing and it is just so satisfying to see everything fit in place

well done, i am considering building one to clean the rivers around Montreal

I got some ideas for improvements like a motor to pull the net up out of the water when not in use that would decrease drag. Or a drone that find trash in head of time to save time or even flexible solar panels on the boat so it can charge if it dies in the water and how about if it were an autonomous sworn. It could clean a larger area in a very small amount of time and it would be so much more efficient. This negating the negative side effects of the boat. I’m excited for the second one

Great job! Thanks for doing something to Keep America Beautiful! I saw someone on RU-vid take recyclable plastic bottles, cut off the top and bottom, put the bottle through a homemade cutter of the same thickness as their 3D printer nozzle, and turning the bottle into one long strip. And finally, pass the strip through a heated tube that reshapes the strip into cord that can now be used as stock to use for more projects... like making a boat that picks up plastic bottles!

That's so awesome dude!

I guess I'll wait for next video for the package

This is a wonderful invention I love it, keep the environment clean bravo thank you for showing us

Great job and thanks for the clean up.

Great idea and execution. Similar kind of boat I made for my pool to collect leaves and other debris from water surface. It is acting as a floating skimmer. Next step is autonomous boat charging from solar panel and may be, even, sort of vision system that will spot floating garbage and will pick it up,

He *really* missed the opportunity to say he’s fighting fire with fire

Hey Drew love this idea great for skimming leaves out of my pool. Imagine on a much larger scale if they had something like this for the oceans. By the way when you said Dollar Rama I thought oh Wow! you're from Canada but when you said KW what a coincidence. Thats where Im from Westmoreland area. I assume that was the Grand River? I live in both in Atlanta and Kitchener depending on the weather.

This is awesome and definitely got a like. The only things I would do differently is mount the receiver in a top spar with the antennas out, bigger extended props for enough power to go upstream with a full net and a bigger net. It's awesome and inspiring to see you try something new and make something useful.

First off, Happy Belated Birthday! I was actually checking out that exact 3D printer the other day lol. The Junk Skimmer was a great idea, now if you made a bigger one with a deeper net, you could catch fish with it lol.

Thanks, this will make a great RC boat recovery boat.. I am printing one now.

You are very talented, awesome build😀😀

There is a slum in Nigeria where this R/C not could be useful. There is a lot of trash there due to the government dumping their garbage around their area. It is a sad situation. Introducing this the the kids their would amaze them. I am definitely using this boat. Thanks for working on a project like this.

This is absolutely amazing. Love all but the the cutting without clamping.

look at this guy helping the environment bro build a mini version of mark rober’s team seas boats

I really enjoy your builds keep it up Drew and maybe for the next modification if its possible consider using solar power to charge the batteries

Nicely done. I feel like a project that is made to remove plastics from bodies of water and is itself made of 3D printed plastic should emphasize how that plastic (PLA) is itself less of a problem since it's actually biodegradable.

wow, so cool, I run racing rc boats and we run our water cooling intakes on the rudder as the prop pushes the water into it, so i would put a bit of tube that extends out just beyond the prop.

Great job - very inspiring. Thank you for the video!

This is a sweet project. Years ago before drones were mainstream and just called quadcopters I made a mosquito-fogging drone for a school that is right along a marsh. It worked out well for the children who play outside during recess. I love building. I'm going to have to give this a go as our marina is always full of plastic bottles and can rings.

13:48 I feel you so hard. I planned on making a huge RC crawler, put maybe a 100h work into it. Now I'm realizing that the whole suspension is basically trash and I have to redo eveything, from the wishbone to a new chain drive. Anyways, love your video style and it's a super nice project!

The giant ocean ones are so cool cleaning up the Pacific ocean and rivers

Great engineering and skill keep up the good work 👏

adding a small solar panel would be very good as well as the longer props.

Brother you are a true pro. Greenpeace will appreciate it !!!

This would be super useful in Miami or South Florida in general... Maybe bigger but still small and light enough to get close to seawalls in Biscayne bay and such. Interesting build

I love your videos, keem em up! 😝🙃

Finally a video about building an RC boat where somebody actually speaks and gives an explanation of what's going on. I was starting to think that everybody in the RC boat community was completely mute.

It strike me that this would scale to a pair of HDPE kayaks (with larger motors and ESCs, of course) and robotising it with ultrasonic sensors for boundary/obstacle detection or even a small GPS unit. This would enable presetting a route. Using a wireless camera is a also a great idea, even for robotics control. AI image processing is accessible at hobbyist level, these days and would contribute to automating the garbage hunting, as well as giving POV from a manual driving perspective, too. Could be a great little community group project, specific to creating garbage hunters at a kayak scale, but also boating clubs, both RC or full scale.

Congrats man, I'm still at the part of designing my boat. xD I really like your design too

As an RC Enthusiast I really enjoyed this kind of video, you're saving planets while enjoying the hobby! Hahaha

this deserves more views. i hope the algorithm gives it a boost

❤love it, brilliant, I've been designing a catamaran to print on my CR30 print mill.. want a 3m pontoon but was thinking a 1m RC scale test makes sense.. collecting plastic out of the local canal is definitely happening 👌

brilliant idea, for a lake river and a pool, and some of us would have loved to see your package

This video is absolutely crazy, co tongue the hard work. Unfortunately I don't have a 3d printer but I would love do construct that boat

This would be a neat thing to implement at local parks or water water ways ( even some crowd sourcing to do allow non owners to do some collection)

You probably gonna want to replace that surpass esc with a better one because they like to smoke. Although for your application it may not stress the esc that much because the amp rating is more than enough for that boat. But for future projects, avoid surpass esc's

Thank you for the plans! My exact thoughts were I want this for my swimming pool, and there it was you had it in the pool👍🤓 thanks for the files on the boat build. I subscribed to ya Drew keep up the great work

The vid is so well made keep up the great work love the vids

This is so awesome. Hopefully it can be scalled up for larger water ways. But way to go

Ok now its time to make it self sustaning(with minor maintenance)!! Solar for power, self detected trash,self drive to pickup, self detect full, and a whole nother device to empty the trash payload into larger bin.

This dudes content is underrated af Your going to blow up soon man!

A bigger prop for doing slow speed stuff would help, I think. I don't own/race boats, but I think the bigger the prop the better it works in low speed. It will get gummed up from time to time, so I think that being able to spin it in reverse would help a ton as well. I see a lot of boats have issues with that, and I just wonder if spinning the props in reverse just a tiny bit would unravel it. Also, a chamber to suck the water into, and then you suck the water out of that chamber, might help with the water being more reliable?

Awesome build and idea. Try your local park lakes.

So cool! can't wait to see an update on this.

Using plastic to beat plastic. The literal meaning of fighting evil with evil. Cool

You are so amazing and dreamy. ❤️😍🔥 Love your hobby, what you create, and appreciate this channel.

try lake of the ozarks we go there every forth of july and spot a lot of garbage fromother people but you might have some fun!

You should trail behind it a big black bag with holes in to let the water escape, might give you more success

Awesome, love the engineering !

I think its amazing that you live in such a clean and tidy place you had to throw your own rubbish into the lake, just to collect it again!!

All the weight in the rear. Bow out the water and stern nearly beneath the water. So much room for improvement. Mount the net close to the bow, so weight is more centered. It takes a bit of testing to find the right spot to not go to far forward and stuff the nose.

Cool idea. To solve your problem with the motor and help balance the weight better, is to change your design and move the motors to a mid engine configuration, dropping the engines and props under the boat/water, completely immersed in water your problem will be gone.

You could throw a solar panel on top of that and get so much more range.

Thank you for doing!

Fantastic work!

Aqua Roomba? Cool. As a product, it would need autonomy. It would need computer vision to distinguish debris from an otter and stuff.

@22:00 3 is surely a good number!! Loved this project... Loads of love from India... I wish, I could do the same here!! :(

Please please come to Washington DC on the Potomac River. Trash ranges from wrappers and tennis balls to sometimes a plastic bag with a whole takeout container

New to the channel really enjoy your videos ! You do really nice work too !! Glad RU-vid recommended your channel to me !

There's plenty of little waterways here in Buffalo that could use some cleaning up, maybe I should build one for over here.

Really nice build, very cool. I'd be tempted to experiment with long hulls and a wider span, perhaps with a wider net. You could then potentially incorporate GPS with Arduboat/pilot to autonomously skim the surface of the water.

Like a roomba for a pool 👍

Hey man, i appreciated the video and great idea for the planet!

seems like weight needs to be centered or a little bit further forward since once you get trash it will weigh on the back. And/or put the camera on the front rail?

i can easily imagine a swarm of autonomous versions that local governments and councils can deploy into city rivers, great idea and great execution!

Thank for the idea

you are a genius, greetings from Baku Azerbaijan 🤗🙏✊✊✊🎣🎣🎣🎣

I did the exact thing you did XD, bought all the parts I needed for a project of mine without knowing what I needed to do with them and then scrambled to google to search what I needed to do

Drew, you lost me on the electronics, but that is OK. Great build and even greater idea! Just think of how much plastic debris could be eliminated from our lakes, rivers, and streams by taking this idea large scale. As always, it is fun going on these building trips with you.

That's really IMPRESSIVE!👍👍

Nice

Come to Bluffdale, Utah US, there is an extremely polluted river full of garbage everywhere. What's sad is that there is garbage everywhere, and it could be an extremely beautiful place without it. Please come, we need the help.

You are sick dude 🥰 , I love all what you have build, I'm your new fans from Indonesia 🇮🇩 , gonna 👍 all your videos