Put your RC vehicles to work by building a dam and a farm.

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If you've seen our previous videos on using RC vehicles to build tiny civil engineering projects, then you'll certainly love this next one. This time around, we'll be building a miniature dam to irrigate some crops!

Let's see how it is done.

As you can imagine, you'll need some tools and materials before you get started. 

With all your gear in hand, it is time to get on with this great little build. 

After you've chosen a suitable piece of ground for your project, the first step is to fire up your front hoe and dumper truck RC vehicles. Move them to the desired location and begin to excavate the ground to make the main reservoir for the dam. 

You may also need to remove vegetation and other obstacles, like big stones, when doing this. That will, of course, depend entirely on the site. 

Load the spoil into the back of the dumper truck, drive it away, and dump it somewhere. Use your RC vehicles to also excavate the various channels and other earthworks needed for the project, like the rice paddy field, etc. 

Obviously, this will take a considerable amount of time using RC vehicles so, if you are impatient by nature, you might want to get your hands dirty with some tools too. But, that would spoil, no pun intended the experience. 

Once an area has been excavated to your satisfaction, you can bring in your other specialist RC vehicles, like your bulldozer and steamroller, to flatten/compress the ground where needed.

The dam in this project will be made using either the spoil from other excavations or by excavating channels on either side of a mound of earth. 

With the earthworks complete, we can now move on to making the actual dam. Shutter either side of the dam's earthworks, mix up some cement and then load it into your cement mixer RC vehicle. Load by load transport the cement to the dam, and pour it over and around the main earth core of the dam as needed.

Once the shuttering has been filled with cement, you can then lay the cement for the main roadway of the dam too. Flatten and level the cement as needed by hand or using your steamroller too. 

While the cement is still curing, you can add some railings to the roadway of the dam too. With that done, and if needed, continue to excavate the ground for runoff and overflow channels, etc, as needed around the dam. 

With all the excavation work now completed, we can move on to finishing them. Grab your cement and either our into place using your RC cement mixer, or by hand. 

Line the bed and walls of channels and other water features as needed. Level and smooth off the cement as needed. 

Where needed, you can also strategically insert gates in the water channels to enable you to control the flow of water around the structure(s). To do this, simply insert a sheet of wood or plastic across the cement linings of the channels while it is still wet. 

Where needed, for example, on either side of the roadway of the dam, you can insert short lengths of plastic piping into the channels to act as a culvert. 

With that done, you can also remove the shuttering to the dam to expose the cement works below. If desired, you can also add the cement foundations for other structures like, in this case, a small decorative house. 

 You can also add other structures like roads, etc, as needed. 

With that main infrastructure now built, we can now finish the project. Add decorative features, as needed, like plants, etc, as needed. You can also plant the main crops that will be irrigated by the dam and channels structures too.

In this case, rice will be grown in a flooded paddy field, so plant the rice plants as needed. With everything now ready, you can go ahead and flood the reservoir behind the dam. 

Eventually, the water should flood the channels too. 

And with that, your mini dam and irrigation system are now complete! Happy days.

If you enjoyed this little project, you might enjoy using your RC construction vehicles to help you build another project? how about, for example, your own tiny soccer pitch?

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