Nerf football-sized "aquatic drone" powerful enough to tow 2 kids in floaties???

[PeteInTexas]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ziphius/ziphius-the-aquatic-drone?ref=live

There is a picture of it towing two kids in floaties. It was it as two motors that look like power supply fans and a LiFePO4 battery that lasts barely an hour.  Color me sceptical; does anyone else feel the same?

Other than that seemingly out of place claim, it looks like a fun Raspberry Pi based beach/pool companion.

[cthree]

It's a pool toy and if I had a pool I might want to play with one. Those propellers look pretty big and if the motors were beefy enough to turn those with any amount of speed it would definitely be able to tow a kid around. Typical RC toy boat props on a thing that size would be only about 15mm in diameter at most. $250? Well it is to be seen if there is a market at that price, I dunno.

[peter.mitchell]

I don't know why but i thought it looked kinda like a bicycle seat...

[amyk]

RC planes have used brushless motors with astoundingly high power densities for some time, and lipos are known for being able to supply very high currents, so it's not surprising. Here's an example of a 1.3kW brushless motor that's only 28x64mm. Being surrounded by plenty of cooling water probably also helps...

[Psi]

Yep, those props look like RC ducted fans which can handle plenty of power.

Just last week a friend put a 1kW motor onto his RC delta wing (its supposed to have 100W) hehe

Flight lasted around 6 minutes then it slammed into the ground when the camera cut out.

[notzippy]

Interesting, I saw a note in the comments they are using a raspberry-pi cam for the camera - hmmm


http://asia.cnet.com/a-raspberry-pi-powered-autonomous-underwater-vehicle-62221093.htm