I found two computer fans today. One of the fans comes with a 300 watt power source, and the other is taken straight out of a computer. One will definitely be used as the downward facing fan, but we're not sure what we want to use as the propulsion fan yet. I also got a controller and a USB cable for controlling the hovercraft, but we may need a special shield to connect it to the Arduino in order to make it work. 

We have started outlining and drafting what we want our hovercraft to look like. We know we want to use only two fans, have two rudders, and make it as light as possible. Our biggest issue right now is figuring out what we want to make the skirt out of. We're going to experiment with a few different materials most likely.

I found a video of a hovercraft which looks similar to the one we are designing

November 15th Meeting Summary

Today we met up on November 15th. Our group decided on a hovercraft design for our project. The design for the project consists of a chassis (preferably made from a foam material), and a skirt for the bottom of the hovercraft to catch the lift air. Two fans will be used in the design, one for the hover aspect and another for the propulsion of the hover craft. obviously weight will be a very large factor when trying to lift the device. The second biggest challenge will be weight distribution of the craft to make it stay a float

The hovering portion of the aircraft will be the most complicated part of the design. A fan located in the middle of the chassis will preferably push air in a horizontal direction (this quality could possibly be obtained with a computer fan). This air will then be caught by skirts (possibly made from plastic or rubber) and provide the lift force needed to keep the hovercraft aloft.

Team Name: Not Your Average House Cats

Basic Premise of Our Project: Remote control flying or hovering robot. Ordinary house cats would be terrified by this, but we are not your average house cats.

We are thinking of looking into both quad-copter and hovercraft designs, since we are not yet sure which version we prefer.

Also shown are links to an LED cube and auto-balancing robot. We won't be building either of those this semester, but they are still awesome.

Intriguing Projects: