TECH

Student creates submarine jetpack using 3D printer

One thing that makes a lot of people's heads is DIY, from the English acronym of "do it yourself". Product design student Archie O'Brien has always dreamed of having a jetpack and then decided to make his own using a 3D printer.To anyone who is unfamiliar with the term, the jetpack is a kind of backpack that works like a rocket to propel people between fluids. Many are the projects aimed at accomplishing this feat of putting the human being in the air wearing only a backpack, by the way.The British project, however, only works underwater. With a year of development, he created CUDA. His goal was to have an underwater jetpack, but he realized that the cheapest models marketed cost in the $ 17,000 range.So he created a prototype with 45 components, which he produced on a 3D printer and set up his own underwater drive kit. The high price of the original versions is due to the fact that the jetpacks of the market generally use motors for the propulsion, which is not nothing cheap to produce.In contrast, the O'Brien system is carbon fiber and uses batteries to move in the water. However, the biggest challenge for the production of this prototype was to create a system that was waterproof; after all, the proposal was to be submerged.

In this sense, he used a mixture of epoxy resins to seal the device and achieve a satisfactory result in resistance without weighing the equipment too much. Along with the jetpack, there is still a control to regulate the speed of the apparatus in the water, being that the change of direction is all in charge of hitting of arms and legs underwater.

O'Brien's proposal now is to try to market the product, and his first models really ready should come out only in the middle of next year. At the current stage, the CUDA takes about 10 minutes to assemble after the 45 pieces are ready.



Canaltech and 3DHubs