In this tutorial we are going to teach you how to make a “ pop pop boat ” or steamboat with a homemade engine. A simple project where we will use recycled material.
A very curious project to do with the smallest of the house.
Homemade steamboat materials.
For this we will need the following materials:
- An empty milk or juice carton.
- Hot silicone.
- Component glue (it will be better if you can get a high temperature resistant one).
- Pliers (preferably needle-nose).
- Rule.
- Marker.
- 1 small candle.
- Empty soda can.
- 3 straws (it is very important that 2 of them have an elbow to bend).
- 1 piece of wire.
Homemade steamboat instructions.
- The first step is to make the body of our boat.
To do this we are going to open the milk carton, cut the top and bottom so that it is completely open. We are going to use it as a canvas to draw our clipping plane.
- Solid lines are for cutting and dotted lines are for folding.
This is how we will obtain the shape of our boat, closing the edges with silicone or glue. It is important that we cut this piece from one of the corners of the cardboard so that we reserve the excess and make complementary pieces for later.
- Once we have everything well glued to the edges, 5 centimeters from the tip of the bow we have to cut a small centered hole, 1 x 2 cm, where the two straws that will form part of the motor will come out.
- For the motor we take the aluminum can, we mark a central strip of 5 centimeters wide, we cut it and we sand it well on the edges until it is smooth and holds the glue well.
Then, you fold it in half, you will make a line 1 centimeter from each edge and you will use them to fold the piece of aluminum.
- We open the folded aluminum a little, we introduce the two straws and we close the flaps that we have made previously.
It would be bulging, but there is no problem with that. Any remaining folds should be glued together to create an envelope that is sealed on the sides but free at the top and bottom.
- We continue building the ship.
We take out the straws and insert the two that have an elbow with the smallest part first, which is only two centimeters in, so we will obtain a piece that will be like a kind of “L” inclined at 45 degrees, which we must insert into the hole that we have opened near the bow. We will pass a wire from side to side in the body of the boat, so that the position of the aluminum piece with the straws maintains its position.
- We put together the last piece.
The last piece to build is the tower, with the remains of the milk carton. With the longest cardboard we will cut a shape with the lower part of the body of the boat, while with what is left, we will cut two 8 x 7 rectangles, one with the rounded edges only on one side and the other with its four complete corners, but with tabs on the edges of the longest side.
- Finished.
Once we assemble all the pieces, we will fill the straws that come out of the bottom with water, we will put the sail on top of the boat to heat the aluminum piece and that will start our “pop pop boat”.
