Rubber Band Powered Submarine!

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

For whatever reason, cannot remember, other than it seemed like a good idea, I asked my son if he wanted a torpedo that would go through the water. He said yes, I said let's do it. It ended up being a sub-looking-thingy, and I printed it with my Rostock v2 Max, and it works!

Prop shaft is .040 inch piano wire.
The ends of this shaft are deliberately "down inside" either the prop or the aft hull section to protect little kid fingers from the cut ends of the wire. Either sand the ends smooth, or bury them inside something, or best, do both.
Once the toy is rubber-banded together, the shaft cannot really be touched...but use your brain, mmkay?

Installing the rubber bands is not too tricky, I bent a longer music wire hook to assist with routing them, and a pair of needle nose pliers helps too.

The beads for thrust bearing are "crafting beads" I got from US domestic crafting store called Michael's. The following numbers were on the package, around the bar code, to assist with sourcing something similar if you want:
257901
89734-2014-08
86946 16988
Not sure what any of these are, but one of them has to connect back to a part number in their computer.

There is still a fair amount of friction in the bearing/shaft system, but if you wind it enough, it will go several feet through the water, or end to end of a bathtub. The hull "rolls" opposite prop torque as it goes, but who cares, it's a silly toy!

Hope you like it. Now go print one and play with your kids!