i installed the decks today. Worked it out so that the turret sits above deck while the servo body lies below the deck with just the servo gear poking through. then, by drilling a hole for the servo line and moving the exit point of the water gun tube, the rotation problem of the turret was solved. i cut some of the elbowing to sit on the back deck and close the between deck opening. i outfitted the electrical deck with all the appropriate holes and installed the switches (with the drive line now sporting a 10A fuse instead of the original 3A one). taped up all the way around the edges to try and keep out any water that might come over the side of the deck. then, i threw on an American flag kinda at the last minute to give it some flavor. as hard as i worked and as much as the boat does, its not exactly all that reminiscent of a battleship. the flag didn't really help that (considering the fact it would be would be a 70' x 50' flag... not quite realistic) but it gave the boat some flavor. anyways, i finished building, so i was stoked and ready to go to war.
greg, our friend and the tahoe tennis pro, came over to see the launch.
we gave him the ready-to-run boat i bought earlier in the summer to give the battleship a target. heres a shot of the little boat driving around.
before i took him down, we had to christen the boat.
once that was done, the hunt was on. basically, greg's strategy was just to out run my boat and stay out of range of the water gun. my plan was obviously to keep him in range and then just down him in water. by this time, a crowd had amassed for the match. without any further stalling, check out some of the action.
so, the strategies set, the battle got underway. greg did a good job keeping away from me but once in a while i'd land a bit of water on him. then, the lake got a little bit choppy. waves started crashing over our boats, slowing both of us down. this was my shot. then, all of a sudden, the battleship tipped over and was under. the photographer (cough cough) missed the moment, but i'll do my best to describe the moment. greg is running away from me. he wasn't at all in danger being that I am standing in between the battleship and his boat. i'm looking at my ship and trying to come around and make an approach on him. in fact, its really similar to the video from above. i'm making about the same loop as that shot above. unfortunately, about 3/4 through the loop, the boat tips to the left. i'm maybe 10 feet away from the sinking ship so i go running (more of a frantic hopping action) to save it. i make it and grab the bottom to pull it out of the lake. i'm holding the controller in one hand and the boat in the other (now maybe 15 pounds with the additional water weight, so i can't hold it for too long). i have nowhere to put the controller and i don't happen to be using the neck lanyard i made out of shoelaces. so i'm in a pickle. being that he already missed the shot, my dad came over to help me. I really needed the help. so, we get the boat drained of water (via flipping it upside and letting water leak out through the (supposed to be waterproof) taping around the edges of the decks. then i put the boat back in the water. eager for revenge i went for blood.
actually, to be honest, as you might be able to percieve from the video, i jumped back from the boat because i didn't expect it to start up yet. so i didn't try and hit greg, i did so accidentally. the ramming wasn't part of my gameplan but hey, whatever works! and yet, i spent the summer building this thing, most of the time working to make the gun function, so i wasn't interested in just ramming. i came to shoot some water around. so i go set to do so. unfortunately, i wasn't going to be able to fix the top heavyness of the boat during the battle. i had to just hope it would hold up until i sunk greg's boat.
however, following the the successfull ramming, thins went down hill - or maybe down water?
so things looked grim. and actually, they were grim. the controller got wet just after this shot and that ended the fight. (greg's boat was near out of battery - next time, i just wait for his boat to run out of battery cause i have maybe 2 or 3 times the battery life he does). so, that was it. thats what i worked all summer for.
but no, thats not true. i got a lot more out this than the essential failure that transpired out on the lake today. but i've been writing this blog for too long, i'll get to the lessons i learned tomorrow or maybe later today.
No comments:
Post a Comment