This Lego watercraft uses drinking bottles as pontoons arranged in a pattern that make it look very much like a Water Strider, the insects that dance on the surface of a lake.
After the break you can see a video of the rig gracefully navigating a local pond, along with a raft of ducks. It’s quiet enough not to startle them, which is nice. We don’t get a good look at the propulsion system, but [Vimal Patel] calls the floats “hockey bottles” in his Flickr comments. They appear to be Lego themed and we’re wondering if they are some type of packaging for a small set that doubles as a sports drinking bottle once the pieces are removed? The rig includes a camera which provides a great persepcive very near the water level.
This isn’t his only floating creation. He’s got a second rig that was used to film some of the footage of this one.
The lego ‘bottles’ are actually tubs/containers that certain lego types (like Lego Bionics (I think)) come in, which themselves have lego connection points so that they can be joined to other lego pieces.
Boom. Nice and simple I should try and make one like this.About any type of decently sealed container can be reused to make floats.Along with all sorts of toys for the various scaffolds and drive train components to maneuver with.
Great Job!
Yes, you’re correct. Lego used to carry some hockey figures that came in canisters that doubled as water bottles. That was back in 2003, though.
Why not simply spin the floaters? somewhat ineficient but still…
The hockey bottles are packaging for a small Lego kit, a Lego hockey player.
Great project.
The bottles he is using are the enclosures of some LEGO Hockey sets from 2003. They have the numbers 3540, 3541, 3542, and 3543. After removing the kit from the enclosure, the enclosure could be used as a drinking bottle.
I’m the one who built this. [lum]; a paddlewheel was my initial idea, but it was horribly inefficient. The cap-end of the bottle also provides less flotation, which makes balancing VERY tricky.
My flickr page has details on how the bottles were connected. Anyway, thanks for the blog!
i like the floats, they resemble enclosures for knex blocks, rig’s got decent speed, any links to build documentation?
Unfortunately what’s on my flickr is all there is; I took it apart soon after filming to check for water damage (none so far).
What did you use for propulsion?
I used these motors in the middle of the chassis: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=5292, with drive going straight down to these propellors: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=2952
When I saw this I thought of the movie “Tuxedo”, where genetically modified water striders are used to poison water supplies. Good movie.
I bet this robot could be made to do that :P.