A Sailing Paper Boat Machine

So I call this the sailing boat. This is a small-sized machine, when rotated ,there is a boat sailing movement. I always wanted to make some mechanical machines which involves much more mechanics, and here we go! So we all know how to make a paper boat and that’s the thing I do since my childhood until now(Well, I am still in high school and I still am at the edge of my childhood).Making it is really really fun and that’s the paper craft I never forget. And making it is as easy as riding a bicycle! But, what if we add a movement to it? A movement like it’s waving on the waves in the ocean..... that’s what I exactly did. Let’s dive deeper into this instructable and let’s start the project.

1)Patience

1.5 )Patience again

2)Cardboard box

3)Empty refills

4)Tools such as a bending tool(for bending the refill)

5)Basic supplies(glue, scissors, pencil, sketches, double sided tape....)

6)And of course, paper!

So, I made some illustration to explain the project.

Image 1 :So, this is how it looks like. Firstly there are holes drilled in the box and there is a bent tube inserted into it. Now, there are two more tubes attached to the bent tube. These two tubes are attached to the paper boat. So when there a rotation on the tube, the two paper tubes also move resulting the boat to move. But, why is the tube bent? Let's take a closer look.

Image 2:The tube is bent in certain position for a certain reason. When there is a bend in the tube there would be a time gap in the rotation of the tubes. See, the horizontal tube is connected to the two vertical tubes and the two vertical tubes are connected to the boat. Now, the tube is bent in two types. The starting part of the tube is bent pointing upwards and the ending part is bent pointing downwards. And the first vertical tube is connected to the part pointing upwards and the second vertical tube is attached nearly to the part pointing downwards. So, the first tube makes the front part of the boat to stand up and the back part connected to the second vertical tube sitting.

So, when the tube is rotated, the first part pointing upwards comes down and the down part comes up. If you give another rotation they come back to the initial position. So, the front part of the boat comes up and down giving a waving /sailing movement. So, that is how it works.

Image 3: Scenario 1: Here the boat is pointing upwards.

Image 4:Scenario 2: Here the boat is pointing downwards after it is rotated.

So, if we go on rotating the tube smoothly meaning periodically and equally at every stop, we get a realistic sailing movement of the boat.

Now, that the plan is clear we must get it into real life. So, let's start making this!

Take a box. I took a carboard box so I've it's flaps. And we only need 5 five faces of the box. Place the box vertically and then start drilling two holes horizontally to insert the tube. Coming to the tube, I needed a tube which is flexible to bend it. So, I've joined empty refills to make a tube which is longer. The next step is to bend it. Remember the 1st step? Just bend the tube in such a way that the starting part points upwards and the ending part of the tube pointing almost downwards.

Now, it's the time to make the tubes which are connected to the horizontal tube and the boat. Just start taking a long sheet of paper and take a pen and the sheet with it. Boom! You just made a paper tube. Just do one more long tube with another sheet. Now, we shouldn't glue the paper tube to the horizontal tube, but we need to attach it to the horizontal tube. If we just glue it and start rotating, the paper tubes will stick there is a big problem occurred. So, for that reason, make two small cylinders and glue them to the paper tubes horizontally. Now you could insert the paper tubes inside the horizontal tube. And also make two holes on the upper side of the box so that the paper tubes could pass through it.

There's no way you don't know how to make a paper boat. But in case you don't know how to make a paper boat, this step is completely for you.

Take a square sheet of paper. I’ve taken a 22 by 22 cm square according to the box. Start by folding your piece of paper in half lengthwise, then rotate it 90 degrees. And then fold it width-wise. Now it will form a much smaller square and you will have layers of paper in it. Now fold one layer of paper to one side by bringing the bottom corner to the top corner(image 4 and image 5) and rest all layers to another side by bringing the bottom corner to the top corner on the other side.(image 6). You could see it forming a triangle(image 7). Inside the base of the triangle, there will be a hole. Place your fingers inside that hole and pull both the sides to form a diamond shape.

This was very complicated to type for me, so I made a gif so could check it out on the image section(the eighth one) and also a video for understanding it more clearly.

After that gently pull the top parts outwards and you have your own paper boat!

After making the boat, the boat must be attached to the paper tubes. But, don't try to skip this step!!!!

Firstly, the tubes must not be glued to the boat. When you do this, the boat will just move up and down, but doesn't wave. So there's literally no use of gluing it to the boat.

Secondly, the boat must not be just inserted into the tubes. You would get the wave, but the next moment, the boat is gonna fall off.

So we want the boat to be temporarily fixed with the tubes such as it could be rotated and it shouldn't fall off.

For that, I have a simple trick. Insert the tube inside the boat's triangle shape and punch a hole while holding boat such as there would be a hole in the tube and even on the boat. Now make a small cylinder which could fit inside the holes. Then pierce the cylindrical in between the holes. You could see the boat fixed with the tubes and also could rotate.

That's it, you made your mini machine!

Decorate it the way you want! Add some paper touches, color it or paint it, add some backdrops and everything you possibly can! What I did was, adding some cylindrical paper tubes and providing it a backdrop. Actually, you could take an ocean theme and add blue papers and draw some fishes. Hmm.....that would look fantastic. It might actually look like a boat sailing and waving on the waves of ocean. You could give it a try.

Also you could customize just by making boats of different colors and changing it periodically.

You made this thing, but there are some things to mention.

1.Hanging:Just like every time I hang this little machine to the wall and obviously, it looks gorgeous!

2.Rotating:This is the thing I actually want to mention more importantly. After you're done making this, I'm pretty sure you rotate it unevenly. Meaning, it is suddenly jumping up onto the waves and suddenly dropping down.NO. It must not be rotated like that. The spinning must equal at every point of time and not like speed rotation at one time and slow rotation and another time. Just rotate the handle equally at every point of time so that you could get a realistic sailing paper boat.

That's it. But, when will you start making yours?

Hope you liked this instructable. Also, don't forget to vote me in the contest if you liked it.

THANK YOU!