Watermelon Air Boat

watermelon-air-boat

We think you’ll turn a few heads in Central Park if you’re driving a water melon around when everyone else is piloting sailboats. This watermelon is both sea worthy and radio controlled thanks to the work which [Starting Electronics] put into it.

We used this image because it shows you what’s inside of the hull, but you don’t want to miss the thing motoring around an above-ground swimming pool in the clip after the break. The hollowed out shell is quite buoyant and has no problem staying afloat and upright with the addition of a propeller. The parts from a remote control airplane kit have been mounted on a wooden scaffold. This provides plenty of thrust with a servo motor moving turning the prop for directional control. There is no dagger board so the craft is a bit slow to respond to turns. But how responsive do you expect a floating melon to be?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X5wdwlVpK0

35 thoughts on “Watermelon Air Boat

    1. And more ballast at the lowest point.
      That could be solved by switching the expensive li-poly battery pack out with a cheaper ni-mh pack with same capacity.
      Since there’s still plenty of space in the bottom of it, judging from the pictures.

    1. no squirt gun, just a water pump that sucks water from the under side and simply put a nozzle on it aiming front. now you can go and sink other people’s boats by flooding them.

      1. That is what I meant by squirt gun… But yes, there must be melon battles!

        I do like the idea of making this pump powered, rather than air. Then you could simply tap the pump for the squirt gun.

        And who will do a submarine version?

  1. I thought the picture showed it upside down, so that the propulsion was hidden bellow the watermelon. I wondered why the propeller was so large…

    Really, it would have been quite something to see nothing but a watermelon moving around the pool.

    Still, this should turn heads just as much.

  2. I curious about the propeller motor, controller, and battery pack — anyone here familiar with electric RC plane stuff? It seems like the motor is using a lot of power … what are the chances that this LiPo battery is usable for more than a few charge cycles?

  3. I expected to see a zepelin like thing made from a watermellon….oh well.
    Nice idea,also when you think that you can actually shape a watermelon by confining it in a small space (box watermelons anyone?) it gets intriguing.
    I am wondering how long it will take to rot/decompose?

  4. I want to see a vegetable race. Watermelons, eggplants and pumpkins, battling it out! The cucumbers would be like dragsters (needs port/starboard stability “pontoon” rig most likely)

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