A Vacuum Cleaner

Inspired by a link called “13 Exciting Weekend Projects for Engineers”, I was instantly drawn to a video that teaches me how to make a vacuum cleaner. It’s something I can use in my daily life and the materials needed are not complicated. For example, in the video, there are a lot of projects that require larger pieces of wood and sophisticated tools, it’s not practical to complete such projects within a short amount of time and even if I could, the final product will not be detail-oriented. With that being said, I wanted to shift my focus on making something creative, but at the same time, not extremely difficult.

• a tube – the thickness of the tube should fit the cork of the plastic bottle
• a plastic bottle – drill a hole at the bottom of the plastic bottle so that the motor can stuck in the center
• a motor – connected to the fan so that it creates enough pressure to suck up dust
• 3D print fan (with 8 blades) – go to onshape.com and build a mold for fans (try different shapes and different numbers for fan blades)

• go to onshape.com and start a new project
• find a tutorial online and follow it through (make modifications based on the size of your bottle and the any other needed changes)
• combine all the parts you create into one piece (so it won't fall apart)
• print it out (make changes to the size, thickness, and the number of fan blades accordingly)

• prepare a (2L) plastic bottle
• use a knife or scissors to cut off the top part of the plastic bottle
• drill a hole at the bottom of the bottle (large enough for all the attaching wires to go through and for the motor to stuck at the bottom center of the bottle) -- do this step very carefully since the hole needed is relatively big and it takes patient to use the drilling machine

• stuck the tube through the bottleneck (make sure it stays)

• glue the motor and the printed fan together
• stick the motor at the bottom hole we cut through on the last step

• tape the top of the plastic bottle to the bottom half
• beautify the bottle the way you like it