Hey Martin,

My friend and I were at the local duck pond, trying out his new boat and started talking about how much fun it would be to have an RC duck to chase the real ducks around with.  Fast forward a few months, while playing a children’s sing along C/D, for my 20 month old Grandson, the Rubber Ducky song came on and so did a light bulb over my head.  I had to have an RC rubber Ducky!  Not just another Rubber Ducky but one with a sound system in it.

I remembered that I had seen a few ducks on the Vac-U-Boat web site.  I e-mailed Phil at Vac-U-Boats about my idea.  He was full of ideas and suggestions, and was great at helping me with this project.

My duck arrived a few days later and it was all I hoped it would be.  The duck comes painted life like.  The hatch has been cut and a hinge and latch are mounted.  It comes with the motor, universal joint, stuffing tube, prop shaft, prop, rudder shaft and rudder, steering arm and push rod, all installed (I added the optional 4 blade prop for a little more power).  The tray that the motor is mounted to is formed fitted for the motor, steering servo, receiver, ESC and batteries.  The servo mount even has mounting screw holes pre-drilled.  The four page instructions make finishing the duck vary straight forward.  Not only are they well written and easy to follow but include 27 photographs so you can’t go wrong.  The instructions are printed in black and white but you can download a full color set from their web page, if you want.  Also included was an EZ connector for the servo to push rod adjustment, a couple strips of heavy duty Velcro for mounting receiver and ESC., a tube of shaft lube, a couple of hex wrenches and an antenna tube.  You add your own radio, ESC and 6 cell batteries.

I started by removing prop shaft and rudder.  Then came the hardest part of the whole project.  I had to figure out what part was to be painted with yellow and what to paint orange.  I got her all painted, hit it with a couple coats of clear coat and let her dry for a couple of days.  It all went together in a matter of a few minutes, really, it only took a few minutes.  Now comes the fun part, the sound system.  I bought a small MP3 player and a small, amplified speaker.  I downloaded real duck sound effects then added the Rubber Ducky song.  I used some more Velcro to mount the system in the duck.  I’ve got the MP3 to repeat the sound tract, so I turn it on just before I launch her.  Off she goes quacking and quacking and quacking then all of a sudden she starts singing “Rubber Ducky, you’re the one, you make bath time so much fun…..” over and over and over…..

The real ducks on the pond don’t seem to care much for the big, yellow, singing duck but my Grandkids sure do love it!  I found out that real ducks can swim really fast to get out of the way of the Ducky but are curious about the quacking sounds she makes, what a dilemma.

If you want a fun, quick, easy way to get on the pond, and maybe drive a few ducks daffy (get it, daffy duck, he, he, he) the Vac-U-Duck is the way to go!

http://www.vac-u-boat.com/

http://www.vac-u-boat.com/Vacuduck.htm