Recycled Air Hockey Puck

AA or AAA battery powered air hockey pucks have been sold on the internet and in shopping centres for a few decades now. However, this article is about a recycled air hockey puck, made from used materials. An air hockey puck must be able to float above surface at least 0.5 cm from the group.

The make an object fly is a big challenge for two reasons:

- the propeller and rotational speed must be sufficient to generate enough force to life the project,

- the materials (motor, body and propellers) must be designed to minimise the weight,

- if you are using a battery rather than wired power supply then you need to smallest and this lightest battery.

Materials

A recycled air hockey puck can be made from a paper or plastic cup with a motor at the top of inside the cup. The propeller must be small enough to prevent hitting the players hands but efficient enough to life the puck of the ground. Isolating the propeller with cage is a bad idea due to weight of the cage. It might be possible to increase the size of the puck.

Thin metal wire can used to attach the motor to cup. You might try removing the insulation if its not too much trouble to reduce the weight of the puck.

Nowadays there are many miniature motors sold on the internet. Only a few years ago it was hard to find small and light propellers. You have to be careful when you ordering the propellers because some sellers sell very brittle propellers that can break easily.

Batteries

I seen a number of videos on YouTube where the drone was powered by wires instead of AAA batteries because of weight issues. Then I was thinking why none of them tried using small 3 V button cells that have much smaller mass. You can cascade three 3 V buttons cells in series to create a 9 V sources. However, this voltage could be above maximum limits for the miniature motors.

There is also an option of solar powered air hockey puck because many air hockey tables waste too much power on ensuring that air is coming out of the table to keep the non floating pucks a millimetres above the surface. 

Conclusion

I never tried implementing any of those ideas. I hope that you can contact me if you have photos and videos.

You might even be able to convert you puck to a drone or simple toy helicopter.