The Frugal Duel Intro

This is a blog where I post all the different engineering related projects I work on. I started this blog my junior year of high school and have been posting my projects ever since. From homemade tricopter drones to remote controlled airplanes to electric longboards, join me as I explore the world of engineering on a budget!

Folding Electric Longboard Update:

So my folding electric longboard idea worked out better than I had expected, and I want to keep it away from the publics view for right now. Thanks for your interest and I hope you can understand.

Aladdin at University of Maryland

This year for Halloween, I decided to convert my electric longboard into a magic carpet, and dress up as Aladdin as I went to and from my classes. I'm a freshman in college and have very limited resources for building things. So, I used electrical tape, cloth from a fabric store, and plywood from a dumpster that I cut in half with a knife. The result turned out great, and I got lots of compliments!

Homemade Electric Longboard

This is my electric longboard I built. It has a carbon fiber board that I designed and made.
Top speed: 18 mph Range: ~ 5 miles

Electronics, drivetrain, and other accessories: The board has two 5000mah 3s lipo batteries, one 149kv Turnigy brushless motor, and a Hobbyking X-Car Beast 150 amp electronic speed controller. The gear ratio is 15 to 32 to a 80 mm wheel. The motor is connected to the trucks (cheap amazon trucks: SCSK8 longboard trucks and wheels- Don't buy these though, invest in better trucks) with 2 parts I CNC'd that allow the belt to be tensioned with a wide range of variations in belt and pulley sizes. The transmitter I use now is a Cool RC 2.4 Ghz Transmitter, although I wouldn't recommend it since it is very clunky and eats through batteries like its nobody's business. The batteries and ESC are protected from water and dust with 3d printed parts I printed on a MakerBot.

Carbon Fiber Board: The foam core was cut on a CNC using the hsm express slicer. The piece of wood that fits inside is half inch 3 ply plywood that I laser cut. The point of the plywood was to make certain that the board would hold my full weight, and allow for hard points in board (Note: the wood is is far from being able to hold my weight alone). I then laid one layer of bidirectional carbon fiber on either side and wrapped it around the sides. I spread epoxy resin on it and then vacuum sealed it until the epoxy hardened.

Software: The longboard was completely designed before built using OnShape, a free online CAD modeling software that I find better than either Inventor and Solidworks. To generate the g-code, I used V-Carve Pro for the motor mount and HSM express on Inventor for the foam core of the board.

Machines: I used the machines provided by my high school. The CNC was a Tormach PCNC 1100. The laser cutter was a boss laser LS-3650.

Electric Longboard

 Stay tuned for my homemade electric longboard video!

Idea: DVD Driver 3d Printer

This is my next big project: a 3d printer from recycled DVD drivers! The purpose is to learn more about how 3d printers work in a cost efficient and sustainable way. An Arduino UNO will control the 3d printer. The entire design of the 3d printer is public on the cad software, Onshape, for everyone to see as it grows (Just look up "3d Printer from DVD drivers" on onshape.com). Should be a fun build!

Vietnam War Casualty: Paul Vincent Nelson

Although this isn't engineering related, I thought I'd share with everyone a history project I made on a Vietnam war casualty: Paul Nelson. One thing I really liked about the project was that there were barely any restrictions or guidelines. We could make a poster, grow a tree, anything we wanted. For my casualty, there wasn't much information online, so I ended up calling numerous people to try to find out more about who Paul was during high school and the war. (All of the quotes in the video are from phone calls) The project gave me the opportunity to know Paul as a friend, even though I never met him. As the movie "Taking Chance" told it, "You're his witness now. Without a witness, they just disappear."