Self Righting Toy Boat

thingiverse

I had to design this toy boat for my Grandchildren. I made many of the toy boats already available but kids are harsh task masters and they have not been impressed by the performance. They like to play their own extreme version of “Pooh Sticks”. Chucking them in local streams and then racing down to the bottom (local beach) to catch them. Some of the boats sank outright :- Much wailing followed by Granddad (me) wading in to get them. Some of the boats flopped on their side:- Slight wailing turning to begrudged acceptance that the game still worked. Many of the boats went “tits up” (upside down) :- Sad looks and the dreaded “we are not angry but we are very disappointed with you Granddad” (Far and away the harshest criticism). The local streams are very rocky with lots of white water and water falls etc. At the end of the stream the Grand kids will accept nothing less than the emergence of the correct number of upright and floating toy boats. So this toy boat is quite round and has a simple form to avoid snagging etc. It is fully enclosed for buoyancy. It needs to be printed with 8 layers (0.3mm layer) on the bottom to provide ballast. If you use thinner layers than add more solid base layers to compensate. It works best with 15% fill to make the upper sections lighter. Other settings are standard 0.3 layer etc. The cabin and funnel are largely hollow to provide the self righting buoyancy. The standard boat is about 80mm long but it should scale up if needed. I have now printed one at 120% which worked fine or even slightly better. I triumphantly declared to the Grandchildren that these boats were unsinkable and would always emerge upright. In hindsight this was an unwise statement to make and it was not long before one of the little boats mysteriously disappeared. After an investigation it was discovered that their dog had fished it out and eaten it (its a big dog). In the boats defence I would add that there are not many things that their dog hasn't eaten.