DIY Electric Kayak
TBD
You’re still paddling — just smarter, not harder. We spent the last year building the e-bike of kayaks.
We built an e-kayak with a 15 mile range, 4 mph top speed and a custom, hands free controller. All for under $1,000.
What You’ll See at the Booth:
Propulsion System
A small, waterproof, BLDC motor is the propulsion behind the kayak. We designed a custom, 3D printed fin that the motor mounts to. The motor is controlled by an onboard Raspberry Pi that talks to the paddle controller over an RF module.
Smart Paddle Controller
The majority of our time was spend developing a custom, waterproof controller with an IMU (inertial measurement unit) inside. It can track the paddle’s movement in space and will be used for paddle assist features! It also contains a Feather M0 microcontroller running FreeRTOS and a RGB neopixel ring display. We wanted the user experience to be as close to regular kayaking as possible so the controller mount was designed to easily latch to a paddle for hands free control.
Machine Learning On the Water
We’re still very much in the early stages here but the plan is to train a custom ML model to detect paddling as well as left / right turns. The system will record data from the paddle motion sensors to train against onboard GPS data.
Built on a Budget
Everything was designed with cost and accessibility in mind—this isn’t a high-end commercial setup, but a practical, open-source solution built for under $1,000. It uses mostly hobby grade parts and some custom 3D-printed enclosures.
Whether you’re into open-source hardware, embedded systems, or just love the outdoors, this project is for you!