Wish you were Iron Man, only underwater? YouTube channel Eclectical Engineering made an underwater flight-suit with 3D printed propellers. 

Are you a poor swimmer? Do you actively avoid going near water? Rather than learning how to swim, the makers of the YouTube channel Eclectical Engineering, came up with an eclectic solution to their problem.

The Eclectical Engineering YouTube channel has 60k subscribers and posts content ranging from 3D chocolate models to the World’s Largest Nerf Gun. Their latest video shows David Shulman and Ryan Kung swimming faster than any human.

The Electrical Engineers say that their idea is essentially to:

“Strap a very heavy assortment of electronics to yourself in the hopes that you won’t be (i) electrocuted or (ii) dragged straight down to the bottom. And here at Eclectical Engineering we have an abundance of hope and a healthy disregard for grievous injury.”

At the very beginning of the video, David Shulman straps four electric motors to his body which provides an awesome shot of him propelling through the water.

Become an Underwater Iron Man

Although there are already commercial products available to help propel you through the water, Shulman explains that they wanted to make something a lot more powerful. Their ultimate aim was to go faster than anyone can swim.

They bought the motors from Hobbyking and chose the motor Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 – 5065-236KV Brushless Outrunner Motor. To test out the motor, the engineers first tried attaching it to their arm and submerging it in the bath.

This caused a fair bit of mess, and they were unable to fully test complete submersion. So they decided to put a force gauge on the end of the motor, then submerge it into the lake.

After working out how much power one motor offered, they built three more and put them all together. Kung and Shulman used Solidworks and a FlashForge Creator Pro 3D printer to develop the casing for the motors.

Finally, they tested their Iron Man propellers in a lake, then a swimming pool. Amazingly, they managed to achieve a speed of 6.25 miles per hour. That beat the Olympic record held by Michael Phelps for six miles per hour!