LDK Series. Universe XF Adapter. Camera Accessories. Camera Control Systems. Camera Connect for MCP Creative Grading Engine. Creative Grading Platform. Viewfinder LDX 2 Inch. He added a foam and wood bracket to the read deck to allow a trolling motor to be clamped on. He included a video of his boat, zipping around with his 30 lb thrust motor. He also showed his own hatch idea, the tops of beer brewing containers.

The white Mouseboat was the fourth foam boat I received pictures of, as far as I know, he didn't ask me anything first, just went ahead and built a great boat! The board across the back is a long board type skateboard. I would love to see a picture of him cruising on his board towing the mouse on the dolly he built!

David Cutts has been working on his foam mouseboat for a few months, his quality of build and detailed paint job make my boats look ugly in comparison. He told me he was interested in using his mouseboat to get close to wildlife for great pictures. If you share your pictures in the comments below, I would love to share them to show everyone else. If you have a name for your boat, I would love to hear it, and a general idea of what state or country you are in.

I know the glues I used are not easy to find in every part of the world, if you found a local product that worked instead, sharing that info will help the next guy find options. Hey everyone. I've been building the foam boat and having a great time doing it. I'm at the sheet wrapping stage right now.

I wanted to share some advise on tools for those who may build this in the future. Saws: - If you happen to have a bandsaw with a fine tooth blade, do yourself a favor and use that.

You can get straight lines and cut out pieces very quickly. Much cleaner cuts, cuts through the Great Stuff like butter, starts up cuts easier, just better in every way. No solvents, no mess - Even better, I used Dollar Store plastic plates as my mixing surface and quickly learned that Great Stuff does not stick to them once it's dry.

The entire GS mess just pops off as one piece. Building surface: - I had an old hollow-core door sitting around and taped the structure down to this when fitting the bottom panels. This completely eliminated any chance of the boat getting out of square or twisted.

Worked great. Putting Holes in the Foam: - I didn't want to buy a wallpaper puncture device because I'm cheap. The whole thing is about 6"x6" with about 24 nails in it. Only took about 10 minutes to make it and works great perforating the foam. Free tool. Hope that helps someone else. I'll report back once I'm finished. Thanks for the great instructions and the fun project.

Reply 4 months ago. I have used this method to increase the capacity of an existing boat, modified an existing kayak, and I am currently building myself a catayak. A 12 foot catamaran kayak the strange looking modified kayak has remained stable in 16mph winds and white capped waves on Lake Sydney Lanier.

Reply 11 months ago. I had not determined hot to get them all in the board. Now, kind sir, I will use your method and mount a large handle on the top to be able to push and pull to quickly make the perforations. I appreciate your cereativity. This is easily my favorite sentence in all of Instructables-dom: "can you cut a crusty bagel with a knife, stick a sandwich together with mayo, grate cheese, cut thin fabric with scissors, stretch wrinkles out of bed sheets, and roll paint onto a wall?

I love your enthusiasm, sense of humor, and inventiveness. Thank you for sharing and inspiring. Question 2 years ago. Is it possible to use this method to make an aerodynamic car top carrier box? Would it hold up to the wind resistance if fastened well to the car's roof rack? Answer 2 years ago. Absolutely, I've gone through the construction process a few times in my head. Probably attach it with U bolts around the bars.

The rest could be foam reinforced with nylon straps for better strength. By sculpting the foam the way it is in my sawfish foam kayak, the ends could be very aerodynamic. Reply 2 years ago. If it will hold up to the wind, I sure want to give it a try.

I saw the sawfish sculpt and the second I saw it, I thought "car top carrier. Just have to plan it out I like this idea. Tyvek is a poor choice for gluing as it is made of spun plastic think cotton candy made of melted milk jugs , and nothing likes to stick to it.

Reply 3 years ago. Maybe with some other type of glue the results are worth the trouble, surely not with the one I tried. Reply 4 years ago. I have not tested tyvek, the slippery, plasticity feel of the surface lead me to believe it would not stick to the glue very well. Question 3 years ago on Introduction.

Would using canvas in the cockpit provide enough strength to omit the chip board? My attempt at your boat is really coming together.

Thanks for the excellent article! Answer 3 years ago. I would suggest another layer of foam in the cockpit floor if you don't do the chipboard, I'm not sure canvas alone would be enough.

It should be noted that the deck hatch does not interfere nor interact with the reconfiguration of the sheet from kayak to integral box forms. The kayak also includes a pair of fairings bow and stern , shown in Figure 2, 10, 13, 18 and 19, comprised of a channel-like flexible boot that is complementary in size and form to the leading edge and trailing edge of the bow and stern of the assembled kayak.

The fairings joined to the bow and stern cushion the impact of direct collisions of the bow or stern with objects, and also serve to limit water intrusion into the folded bow and stern assemblies.

Each fairing includes a loop at the upper outer end thereof to facilitate lifting the end of the kayak using a simple finger grip. To set up the kayak, the user follows these steps:. Assuming that the kayak is in its self-define box configuration of Figure 4, the carrying strap harness is removed, and the floorboard , which also forms the top of the box is removed. Coupling straps that hold the opposed sides of the box together are released, and the kayak begins to unfold and open, as shown in Figure 5.

The folded ends within the box are rotated outwardly and upwardly, as indicated by the arrows in Figure 5. The unfolded sheet, shown in Figure 6, reveals a bow bulkhead secured to the bow end of sheet by a tension line joined at the centerline The flaps are folded inwardly into the cockpit area.

The bow bulkhead is placed into the forward hull area, as shown in broken line in Figure 6, and the footrest is also placed laterally astern of the bulkhead The footrest straps are clipped in place to adjustable buckles secured within the hull not shown. The bow bulkhead is secured in place by fittings secured to the interior hull surface. Bow and stern creases are folded longitudinally inwardly in accordion fashion Figure 6 to form an upswept leading bow edge, and secured in place with adjustable buckle assemblies.

Resilient weather stripping may be secured to the mating surfaces of the bow and stern creases in order to exclude water intrusion. The opposed edges are rolled inwardly toward each other, as shown in Figure 7, with the flap overlapping the edge of the opposed deck panel , as shown in Figure 8. Starting with the middle unit, the adjustable buckle assemblies are joined and tightened to secure the deck assembly Figure 11A and 1 IB.

The fairing is then stretched over the bow and secured with a deck strap and tightened Figure 9 , so that the assembly is in the disposition of Figure The floorboard is then placed in the bottom of the cockpit area formed by the central section , with its fold lines extending longitudinally and curved convexly upwardly, as shown in Figures 13, 14A and 14B.

The edges of the floorboard are placed into the channels of the edge fittings of the flaps Figure 15 and the floorboard is pushed downwardly to the concave disposition of Figure 14B. This position assures that the flaps and form the triangular beam assemblies and remain securely in the assembled gunwale configurations.

With regard to Figures 16, the seat assembly is then installed. The seat pad is installed under elastic cord , and the lower end of seat column is inserted into socket in the floorboard The strap is secured with a buckle extending from the floorboard to secured the seat column.

The seat strut is then installed in the keyhole openings of the flaps , and the straps are connected to buckles of flaps , which are adjacent to reinforced handhold opening , resulting in the disposition of Figure The stern end is then assembled by joining fold as described for the bow end.

The stern bulkhead Figure 18 , which is substantially the same as the bow bulkhead, in then placed into the stern section and secured in a similar manner. The stern deck flaps are then overlapped and secured with ratchet strap assemblies , as shown in Figure 20, and the assembly is complete. After adjusting the positions of the seat back height on the seat column, and the distance of the footrest from the seat back, the kayak is ready to launch and to be enjoyed on the water, as shown in Figure To disassemble the kayak, the steps above are generally reversed.

The adjustable buckles are released, bow and stern folds are released, the seat assembly is removed, and the floorboard is removed. The panel may then be folded into a configuration in which it forms its own integral case for self- storage of the panel and the ancillary components. The panel is placed in a flattened disposition as shown in Figure 3 and, as shown in Figure 16, the opposed end sections and are folded upwardly in turn along fold lines Each of the end sections and are folded inwardly each toward the other along fold lines , forming converging vertices Note that the user may stand at the end of the sheet, grasp the end of the sheet and use the knee maneuver of Figure 22 to force the inward fold along line The converging end sections and tend to draw together the opposed sides a and b of central portion , so that the opposed sides rotate each toward the other about fold lines With regard to Figure 24, the confronting vertices are diverted slightly laterally as they are brought into approximation, and the end sections and begin to fold about lines as the side portions a and b continue to rotate toward each other.

In this regard, the invention provides indicia on the sheet that aid in aligning the converging sections properly. As shown in Figure 3, a pair of target indicia, such as the bullseyes , are formed on the interior surface of sheet , each adjacent to an intersection of fold lines and Each bullseye and arrow pair, A and A, and A and B, may be color coded to make apparent their intended proximity.

As a result, the folding end sections and slide past each other as they collapse together, with the end section folded substantially flat along axis and impinging on the inner surface of the side of the central section In a like manner, the end section is folded substantially flat and impinging on the inner surface of the side portion of central section Figure 25 , thus defining the carrying case of Figure The opposed sides of the now-defined box.

The interstitial spaces between the folded panels within the case may be used as storage to store the bow and stern bulkheads, seat pad, paddles, and other ancillary gear Figure 27 , without affecting the ability of the box. The footboard is placed over the open top of the carrying case, folded along its longitudinal fold lines , and secured thereto with the strap harness to define an integrally formed, self- storage case for the kayak and its components Figure The case may be furnished with additional straps or handles for carrying by hand, or as a backpack.

Custom extrusions of the preferred twin- walled plastic skin material may be used to enhance the performance and durability of the kayak. For instance, the outer surface of a custom sheet could be made thicker than the inner surface, in order to better resist abrasion and impacts from rocks, snags, sandbars, and other obstacles. The same methods and materials may be applied to other portable, collapsible watercraft such as canoes, rowboats, dinghies, sailboats and the like.

Likewise, they may also be applied to folding furniture, packaging, and portable structures. The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of the invention has been presented for purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed, and many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching without deviating from the spirit and the scope of the invention. The embodiment described is selected to best explain the principles of the invention and its practical application to thereby enable others skilled in the art to best utilize the invention in various embodiments and with various modifications as suited to the particular purpose contemplated.

It is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by the claims appended hereto. This invention promotes the manufacture, sale, and use of watercraft in general and kayaks in particular.

It requires traditional and modern fabrication techniques that involve many industries. In a collapsible watercraft formed of a stiff sheet that is creased and foldable along fold lines that define the keel, hull, sides and deck of a kayak configuration, with opposed side edges of the sheet that are folded inwardly each toward the other about a longitudinal axis and brought together to form the kayak configuration, the improvement comprising:. The improved collapsible watercraft of claim 1, wherein said bow deck flap extends substantially the entire length of said other opposed side of said bow edges to form a sealed bow deck closure therewith.

The improved collapsible watercraft of claim 1, wherein said sheet including a pair of stern edges extending at opposed sides of the stern end of the panel and tapering toward the stern end, said pair of stern edges being brought into close proximity to form the stern deck assembly of said kayak configuration;.

The improved collapsible watercraft of claim 3, wherein said stern deck flap extends substantially the entire length of said other opposed side of said stern edges to form a sealed stern deck closure therewith.

The improved collapsible watercraft of claim 3, further including a pair of gunwale assemblies extending longitudinally between said bow deck assembly and said stern deck assembly, each gunwale assembly comprising a hollow tubular beam extending along a respective side of the kayak configuration.

The improved collapsible watercraft of claim 5, wherein each of said gunwale assemblies includes a side panel defined by said fold lines in a midship portion of said sheet, a first gunwale flap hingedly secured to said side panel in integral fashion along a first gunwale fold line, and a second gunwale flap hingedly secured to said first gunwale flap in integral fashion along a second gunwale fold line. The improved collapsible watercraft of claim 6, wherein said first and second gunwale fold lines extend generally longitudinally.

The improved collapsible watercraft of claim 6, wherein said first and second gunwale fold lines are generally parallel. You need to follow the installation instructions and select the USB drivers. You must also provide the name of your board Uno and the COM number of the port usually 3.

Once the sketch is loaded into the Uno, it can be used over and over. Disconnecting the power to the Uno board does not affect the stored program. If this is the first time that you have powered up your Uno board with an USB cable, you will immediately see a blinking LED on the board.

This tells you that the board was shipped with a sketch already loaded in it. This exercise shows how easy it is to change the parameters in a sketch. The next job is to copy the sketch shown below into the program listings of the Arduino IDE. The procedure is as follows. When there are numbers integers in the sketch, they will need to be defined before the setup section.

It means that port 3 will generate the PWM outputs. In the setup section, we will also show whether the port is used as an input or an output port. Any error will be picked up by the compiler and progress will stop until the error is corrected. It is very easy to make a punctuation error or omit a punctuation. Type the sketch with care!

The Electric Kayak sketch follows. It also comes in handy if you need to troubleshoot an error uncovered by the compiler. To retrieve the sketch, the easiest way is by using the up arrow located at the top of all sketches.

The setup code shows that we have 2 output ports ports 3 and Port 13 is used to output the motor direction signal to the Cytron driver. Six speeds operate forward while 3 speeds run the motor in reverse. Ports 4 through 9 are the forward speeds while ports 10, 11 and 12 are the reverse speeds.

It becomes a 1 when that particular speed routine is selected by the rotary speed control switch. The loop section is composed of 9 similar speed routines for the 6 forward and 3 reverse speeds.

Each speed has its own PWM number and direction of rotation according to the setting of the speed control switch. The next clockwise position will cause the second routine to become active. It will increase the speed to PWM 80 in the forward direction. The next 4 positions will have the same effect in the forward direction. The last switch position runs the motor at its maximum speed with a PWM of Each step will increase the speed in reverse in the same manner as the speed was increased in the forward direction.

The reverse routines are routines 7, 8 and 9. Looking at the 7 lines of code in each routine, we first determine which routine is active if any. The first speed routine is speed F1 Forward 1. It can be a 1 or a 0 and it will only be a 1 if its switch position is selected. If val is a 0, we will go on to the next speed routine. We now move to the next speed routine in the loop. That situation will again cause the motor to run for one second before checking to see if the switch position has changed.

This could go on for hours. There is no noticeable power loss in the motor because the Uno is so fast that going around the loop once to check the other 8 speed routines takes less than 50 microseconds, a time lapse too short for the motor to notice. At this point, the power to the electronics can be turned off and the battery pack can be removed from the control box. In this very interesting section we saw how the brains the Uno computer controls the battery pack muscles using the Cytron driver to run the trolling motor at various speeds in the forward and reverse directions.

The Electric Kayak sketch is the program that controls the operation of the brains. We first setup the required 11 input and output ports. Simultaneously, the battery pack voltage, is reduced from 18 volts to 12 volts to match the operating voltage of the trolling motor. We have seen that the Electric Kayak is a stock 10 foot kayak with 3 major additions: a mini-transom on which to mount an electric trolling motor, a steering mechanism and a control box which operates the motor at various speeds in two directions and houses the battery pack.

In this section, we will describe these additions with photos and show how they are mounted in the kayak. The image below shows a control box with an ammeter, a voltmeter and a speed controller.

On the right side, a Ryobi 4 or 6 Ampere Hour battery pack can be plugged in. On the left side a 1 inch hole is provided so that a USB cable can be connected to the control box from a PC. In the back cover of the box there are 2 terminals for the two conductors to the motor. The control box is mounted on a 3 inch tall pod to avoid it getting wet from the water that we usually find in the bottom of a kayak.

The bottom of the pod is contoured like the bottom of the kayak. I made the pod out of 2 pieces of 2 x 4 glued together. It measures approximately 3 by 3 inches.

They match the holes in the control box which are located near the Cytron board, not too far forward, so that lock nuts can be tighten with a box wrench when the back cover is removed. The steering mechanism is simply an arm on a pivot near the middle of the kayak. Attached to the bottom of the arm is a rope that goes around the two sides of the boat and emerges about 2 feet from the electric motor's control arm.

Pulling on the control arm with the steering handle, in turn pulls on the right side of the motor's control arm. It causes the boat to turn in the starboard right direction. Below is a picture of the steering mechanism. The steering control arm is shown in the picture of the motor in section 2. The construction of the steering mechanism is straightforward. The threaded part of the bolt will then be cut flush with the end of the lock-nut. The other half of the pivot will anchor the mechanism to the side of the boat.

It is attached with 2 appropriate screws to a wood spacer block also 5 inches long and approximately 3 inches wide and 2 inches thick.

The back of the block will have to be shaped to the contour of the side of the boat and to a thickness that allows the pivot arm to pass through a slot in the top side of the kayak as shown in the photo of the control box and handle above. A belt sander works very well to do this contouring work.

The only remaining part of the steering to be built is the handle which will be attached to the steering arm. Like the spacer, it is made out of a clear section of pressure treated 2 x 4. Then, by adjusting the fence and the angle of the blade on the bench saw, a professional looking octagon is readily made.

The equivalent of a transom is needed to mount the electric motor on the kayak. There is just enough room for a custom built mini-transom 7 to 10 inches wide depending on the width of the kayak to accommodate the motor clamps which require a minimum of 6 inches in width.

A block of wood of that size can be assembled from our pressure treated 2 x 4 in the following manner. The ends of the block are then trimmed to match the lines of the side of the kayak. Then, the bottom of the block is contoured to match the top of the kayak as we see in the photo below. On the port side we have two threaded rods whereas on the starboard side we only have one. Be careful to keep the rods with the power separated from each other and away from the mounting bracket of the motor as much as possible so that they don't cause a short circuit when the battery cable connections to the motor are tightened.

With two kayaks and two motors, we have four configurations to compare four different sets of performance results. The most important information to be gathered is the efficiency of each configuration. It will be determined by the amount of running time that is produced by a given amount of power in watts.

Equally important is the maximum speed that is achieved at each speed setting. The four charts below show this information. For each of the six forward speed setting for each configuration, the following data is measured: the battery voltage and current which determines the power in watts when multiplied together and the speed.

From separate tests, the barrel water tests the running time is determined for each speed setting. The four configurations are as follows:. The voltage and current readings were taken from the meters on the console. The power in watts was calculated.

It works very well when it rests in the boat. I used the cup holder which works much better than trying to hold the phone. To determine the running time, namely, the amount of time that the motor can run continuously with one fully charged 4AH or 6AH battery, is a time consuming task. Each motor must be run at 6 different speed settings for a total of nearly 7 hours during which weather conditions are likely to change on the water.

More accurate results can be obtained by running the motors under more controlled conditions in a barrel full of water.

There is more turbulence in the barrel but as long as the drain from the battery is approximately the same as when the motor powers a boat, the results are valid. The running time numbers were obtained from the barrel tests. The curves and the two charts below show the running times for each motor. Note that position 1a was added to the 6 forward positions for the barrel tests. It was added to produce a lower speed with less battery drain which is more compatible with position 1 when the motors are used to propel the boat in the open water.

The tests showed that in the open water the battery drain is considerably less than in the turbulent waters of the barrel for the same speed position. To run the barrel tests for position 1a, we simply reduced the PWM number of position 1 from 60 to The two charts below show the running time of each motor for the 7 forward positions including position 1a.

This data, plotted on the curves shown below, is used to determine the running time of each position in the water test results. Batteries rated at 4 A-H were used for these tests. Note that the batteries have identical characteristics using either motor.