Hydrofoil Animatronic
A self-balancing hydrofoil animatronic from the Imagineering R&D team. My part: test equipment, and how the mast, foil and motor connect.
- Year
- 2025
- Context
- Team project at Walt Disney Imagineering R&D
- Discipline
- Animatronics, Mechanical design
At Walt Disney Imagineering R&D, I’m an intern on a team developing the next generation of aqueous animatronics. This one rides on a hydrofoil: a character that lifts itself out of the water, balances on its own and follows a path across the surface.
It’s a team effort. I worked mostly on test equipment, and on how the mast, foil and motor connect on the most recent foil. Along the way, I began to understand the foil itself, and how to analyze it in XFLR5.
The hydrofoil grew out of the team’s earlier aquatic prototypes, a radio-controlled underwater plane and a biomimetic dolphin. It was featured in Imagineering’s We Call It Imagineering series.
How it works
01
A plane under the water
The hydrofoil flies like a plane. Servo-driven ailerons roll it, an elevator pitches it up and down, a rudder steers it, and a thruster pushes it forward until the foil lifts the body clear of the surface.
02
It balances itself
A GPS and an IMU let it balance itself and follow trajectories on its own. If it starts leaning off course, the controller moves the ailerons to bank it back onto its path, while ultrasonic sensors measure how high it’s riding above the water.
03
From test rig to character
The first test platform carried a pink foam stand-in for the character. With the technology in a good place, the team is now working out how far they can push it and what story the character on top should tell.
Videos
