Hovercraft by BurstEVO: 10 Steps

Joint Institute is a school of engineering located in Minghang District, Shanghai. It
was founded in 2006 by the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong
University (Both are globally highly ranked in engineering). The school offers
two undergraduate programs: Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical
Engineering. It provides students with an opportunity like no other of studying
in an English environment with other top students who are enthusiastic about
engineering.

Competition:

In this semester, we are assigned to construct a hovercraft as a team of 4 to 5
people to attend a competition. There are 19 teams in total. The competition is
divided into two parts: Time Trail and Tournament.

In Time Trail, we are asked to complete a lap in the assigned track. We can choose
either to have a warm-up lap before the timed lap or just have one timed lap. The
top three teams in Time Trail will get some bonus.

The tournament is arranged to be a knockout match. At first, the teams falling in
the last six places in Time Trail will play one another to yield three teams to
complete in the tournament with the other 13 teams. One team of these 16 will
be the champion in the end. In the tournament, there should not be any
intentional crash, or that single competition will begin all over again!

Competition result:

Time Trail: 42 s

Tournament: last 16

Competition Regulations:

Lifting Height: <2cm

Maximum Mass: <800g

Maximum Size: 30cm*30cm*30cm

Power Supply: Maximum two portable Power Supplies (for each battery Voltage ≤ 12V)

Motor Specifications: <12V

Central Control Circuit: Arduino series

Remote Control: Mandatory (Bluetooth, infrared, etc).

Step 1: Preparation

Buy the listed materials: a deducted fan, an Arduino board, an extension board for Arduino, a Bluetooth module for arduino, a servo, some acrylic board, some hard polyfoam, a battery, an electron speed regulator, and a PS3 hanndle.

Mention: you will also need tools such as melt adhesive and hot wire machine.

Draw a concept diagram and circuit diagram.

Step 2: Board Cutting

Use laser cutting machine to cut out the Acrylic board with the shape shown in the picture.

Mention: the hole in the center of board 1depends on the size of your deducted fan.

Fix your ducted fan onto board 1 with melt adhesive.

Step 3: Polyfoam

Use hot wire machine to cut out a block of hard polyfoam with U-shape and fix it at the button of board 1.

Step 4: Fixing

Fix the polyfoam onto the Acrylic board.

Step 5: Arduino

Connect the Arduino board with the extension board and the bluetooth module.

Step 6: Servo

Cut a fix the Arclic board to the S3003 servo.

Step 7: Battery

Fix the battery onto the Acrylic board. The servo and the battery together can control the mass center of the hovercraft hence control the hovercraft.