This RC Submarine Is a Miniature Replica of Subnautica’s Cyclops

Subnautica is a video game designed for the kinds of people who are fascinated with marine ecosystems and exploring aquatic depths. In the game, your player character is a survivor of a crash landing on a watery alien planet. You’re given very little to survive with at first, but have the ability to gather resources from the vast ocean in order to craft supplies and equipment. Eventually, if you survive long enough, you can build a Cyclops submarine capable of reaching extraordinary depths. As a quarantine project, YouTuber T-Zero Systems created a fully-functional 3D-printed RC replica of that Cyclops submarine from Subnautica.

RC cars, airplanes, drones, and even boats are fairly common these days, but submarines present many unique challenges that are usually quite expensive to overcome. To keep the costs down, this RC submarine was almost completely 3D-printed and constructed with standard components. T-Zero Systems’ two videos that cover this build go into great detail about how the submarine was made and why it was constructed in the way it was. Like most RC submarines, this one has a central watertight cylinder that contains all of the electronics. That tube contains the battery, ballast, controller, and RC receiver. The RC receiver responds to a signal from a vintage RC transmitter, which was chosen because it operates at lower frequencies that penetrate water more easily.

That watertight cylinder is contained within the 3D-printed hull of the submarine, which was modeled after the Subnautica in-game Cyclops. The hull was split into multiple sections in order to make it possible to fabricate using typical 3D printers. Each section was coated in a special sealing epoxy and then painted in bright yellow with contrasting black accents. A syringe inside of the watertight cylinder takes in or ejects water to modify the buoyancy, and that is controlled by an Arduino Nano. Thrust is provided by a single brushless DC motor, which can work while submerged in water. The rudder and elevators are actuated by servo motors. Those had to be treated with a special sealant to protect them from the water. A camera contained within a clear plastic dome on the nose of the submarine is used to record underwater adventures. The result is a very faithful replica of the Cyclops that is also a completely functional RC submarine.