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Tiny RC Tanks That Fight
Daniel Rutter writes "I've just reviewed a couple of Konami's Combat DigiQs - tiny little remote controlled tanks that can shoot each other. You can stage a two-, three- or four-tank battle, every tank for himself or in teams of two, on a coffee table. They rock."
Those are Iraqi tanks!
Kids these days are too lucky . . . ;)
This post was brought to you by the number 584811 and the characters / and .
Toys are just getting cooler and cooler these days. Why couldn't I have had RC Tank wars when I was a kid? It's just not fair.
Oh well. I guess I'll go back to playing with Lego and my good 'ol Speak-n-Spell.
I am a filthy pirate.
http://www.konami.co.jp/th/micro_ir/combat/english /index.html
ThinkGeek's had this for a while
http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/5776
It's laser tag though. Office Fun!
$cat
weapons of minute destruction?
The writeup of the article with the same text is already on JesusGeeks.
A playground sandbox, a few quarts of 10w40, and you've got your very own miniature Iraq to "liberate"!
I think the BZFlag guys get the award for "most modifier goodies"- it made my dizzy, reading all the different kinds of flags there are. Forget a 'gunner', you need a 'flag checker'.
Driver:"Ooo, ooo! A flag! [steer steer steeer]"
Flag Checker(slow motion): "nnnooooooOOOO!"
-BOINK- BROADCAST MESSAGE: "Team A ran over Hippie Flag, now shooting Daisies"
I wish they'd do collaborative roles, so you really COULD have a driver, gunner, etc..that would ROCK.
Who remembers playing Bolo on their old Mac, or that crazy wireframe tank game? I forget the name, had a 3-D shaped retail box with a red pyramid or something
Please help metamoderate.
I thought the U.S. destroyed all the Republican Guard divisions.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." -- Ambrose Bierce
can the m10's take 4x the damage?
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
But do you actually get killed when your tank blows up? I really find the lack of realism in games these days to be disturbing.
...I'm not sure I'd trust a review from a guy who looks like this.
It's sad that given the number of Iraqi civilians crushed underneath the mechanized assault of the supposedly 'enlightened' Western armed forces, that such horror has been trivialised so soon.
I'll ignore some of your rhetoric, but I will say:
You're a little late to the party.
http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/armymen3.htm
Prepare your kids for a world in which - finally - the stronger can take what they need! Are you afraid that your son may become a homo peace activist? Give him tiny RC tanks and teach him how the world really works.
If these fire actual projectiles (as opposed to just a light beam), then I want one for my girlfriend's cats!
good to see some Australian sites being linked to on Slashdot
However i've had massive problems with every 3D version i've tried. Not only is my first guess almost always rather off because of the complications of the third dimension, but adjusting the shot takes a long time as well. It just takes way too long and isn't as much fun.
Of course hopefully the toy tanks wouldn't take so long to render, and it would be really easy to multi-thread and have them all shooting at once :)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Did you see the pictures of these tanks? How could a tank that can be held in your hand crush people?
Doesn't the logo remind you of ChronoCross/Trigger? Strange....
-- Breaking Windows: Not just for kids anymore KDE
Scary when the tanks are being dwarfed by their remote controls 8-)
Check this out http://www.arroyorc.com/tank.htm They can conquer the armies of gophers in your yard!
I've solved this problem by continuing to buy toys for myself - and now I've got money!
Fact is that as a kid I don't think I would have appreciated the coolness of this. A friend of mine had one of those helicopters that flew in circles, and model rocketry stuff, and I liked it but I thought it was all part of being a kid.
Now I own a Vectron Flying Saucer and a bunch of other cool stuff, and I still play with at much as if I were a kid. But now I realized how awesome it is scientifically, and the fact that things weren't always this cool.
Somehow wanting something for thiry years makes it that much sweeter. Makes me look forward to being eighty.
-------
Believe me, I'm as surprised by my comment as you are.
if i enter the konami code,
will i get more lives?
...those tiny tanks, connected to a PC, so we can play over the Internet with our distant geek friends. :-)
:-)
Yeah of course we have videogames, but it would be much cooler to have the game happening in real-life 3D on a small table in the living room.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
I regret to inform you that you are in fact an enormous tool, and should kill yourself accordingly.
I'll buy into this troll.
I, like a number of other Americans, have had deep misgivings about the war in Iraq. On one had, Saddam is a really brutal dictator with a proven track record of killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, not even counting the empire-building military misadventures of the Iran-Iraq war and the invasion of Kuwait. And the grab for nukes, chemical and biological weapons which are further chilling due to his past regional aggression.
On the other hand, the US has its own dodgy track record of trying to impose a political and social template that can wreak havoc of its own, and that's when we have been altruistically motivated.
With that in mind, while not entirely satisified we're doing the right thing for the right reasons, at the end of the day ending Saddam's despotic regime seems like the right thing to do, even though it will cost a lot of suffering because it should prevent the truly evil suffering Saddam was imposing on his own people. The Iraqis will at least get a shot at running their own country in a democratic fashion rather than having a dictator impose further rape, murder and torture on them.
That being said, what's the "No War In Iraq" camp's answer to Saddam? That's the part I don't get. If toppling his regime through military force isn't the right answer, what is the right answer? I haven't heard one yet, usually there's a lot of shrill, one-sided political analysis of what the US has done in the past and nothing more. I can't help but think that failure to posit alternatives is complicity in Saddam's crimes.
If you jacked up the speed of your tank, you could outrun pretty much anything and get enough spare tanks to never lose. I once playd a single game for 6 or 7 hours. I wouldn't even pause the game to piss or refill the coffee cup (or pipe...).
Still a lot of fun, tho.
Karma: It's not just a good idea. It's the law.
Réservoirs Minuscules de RC Qui Combattent
Signalé par Michael le vendredi avril 11, @03:09PM
du département de la pratiquer-pour-Syrie
Daniel Rutter m'écrit "ont juste passé en revue un couple du combat DigiQs - les petits réservoirs commandés à distance minuscules de Konami qui peuvent se tirer. Vous pouvez mettre en scène des deux la bataille -, de trois ou de quatre-réservoir, chaque réservoir pour se ou dans les équipes de deux, sur une table de café. Elles basculent."
Then we are all complicit in Mugabes crimes, in Than Shwe's. Heck we don't even have a solution to North Korea?
My thinking is that 5-10 years time Iraq will be back as a dictatorship, not because arabs are incapable, but because the Oil that generates the majority of the wealth (and power) in the country is so easy to control.
The solution, diversify the economy, if that is possible with the western countries sucking up lots of the educated individuals.
What we could have done was instead of imposing sanctions, encouraged the middle classes to generate non-oil wealth weakening Saddams relative power base, indeed that is the strategy I would employ for Iran.
Social justice didn't really come about in western europe until the landed gentries monpoly of the money was eroded by the industrial revolution.
slashdot the entire pacific rim as 100,000 geeks download a 3Mb pdf from japan ....
To the commenter above, those are Mini R/C rovers, they are bigger and do not fight each other (thoguh they are hella kool too). I know that ThinkGeek is selling the Tiny R/C Digi Q Cars, but Moe Moe wants a tank to help fight in Iraq against Bush's "evil do-ers"!
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
That's a terrible attitude. And sorry to bring up the past again, but supplying him weapons was literally complicity in Saddam's crimes.
Here's my suggestion, anyway: should've ended the sanctions, (that would've prevented huge numbers of Iraqi deaths over the last 12 years), and kept up with the inspections.
Of course, asking that question now is pointless now that the war is in full force. I can only sit back and hope the middle east doesn't fall apart in the next few years, hope that Iraq doesn't become another Islamic theocracy, and hope the US doesn't do anything stupid like invade Syria.
Hands in my pocket
Fix our own problems, and let the Iraqi's fix their own.
Fix our own problems, and then topple Saddam via military force.
Wait, and let him die while fixing our own problems.
Wait, and gather international support for military action.
Wait, and let arms inspectors find weapons of mass destruction [or not]
Wait, and preasure the UN [and iraq] on their humanitarian issues [while fixing our own, and doing the same to the dozens of other countries with atrocious humanitatiran records]
Wait, while sponsoring subversive covert operations in Iraq.
Wait, while sponsoring enemies of Iraq.
Assassinate him.
Wait until bin Laden is captured/killed/tried and threaten/attack Saddam.
Nuke the entire country and be rid of it.
Send N'Sync on a cross Iraq tour.
> I haven't heard one yet, usually there's a lot of shrill,
> one-sided political analysis of what the US has done in
> the past and nothing more.
And you probably won't ever hear one. About the most 'thought' the typical protester can manage is "I hate Bush. Bush wants to topple Saddam. Therefore Saddam has to be good." There ARE reasons to be against Gulf War II but you won't hear any of them from the usual suspects who are still stuck in Jan 2001.
Democrat delenda est
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Any /.ers care to take on the challenge?
"Knowledge is half the battle!" - GI JOE (he would have read the whole article, then gone off to kick Cobra Commander's ass...)
You know there's been a lot of mini RC race cars as of late; huge in Japan. But they never really were all that cool to me; I mean they've only got so much of a battery life and a range. But change that car to a tank, add a laser tag feature, and give it the ability to spy capablities (See: http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/59eb/ ) then you'll be sure to see me wasting time with these awesome little things.
Dan did some nice review with the DigiQ tanks. The tanks use IR that the IR receiver on any notebook can pick up. Coupled with a small custom application that detects the incoming commands and deciphers them you can play appropriate audio files to enhance the ongoing battle. Run it through your stereo system and it can get pretty noisy. Now I'm wondering if the IR port on my Sony CLIE Palm Pilot can be trained to control these beasties. :-)
My brother and I ordered them from Japan back during Christmas. They are in fact really cool little toys.
The advantages these little things have over the other MiniRC craze are:
No ugly/fragile antenna (IR Control)
Better cosmetic detail of the bodies. A couple little plastic pieces to glue on for added effect are included.
The IR Weapons onboard complete the ultimate childhood fantasy of having your little plastic army men fight.
Good control unit with swapable modules so you can use the same radio to control all the different types of tanks...
The IR control is pretty good as far as range is concerned as long as you have line of sight. You have to mind that you point the control unit in the general direction of the tank... I've been stalled and hit a couple times because I didn't pay attention. There are cool little LED special effects and shaking when your opponent hits you with a shot...
These things will have you building little obstacles and battlefields pretty soon after playing a couple rounds...
Glad somebody wrote a review on these Konami tanks... Very cool... There are also hobbyists who make larger 1/15 scale versions but they cost hundreds... You can get two of these for about $100 plus shipping from Japan right now.
Hi, I'm a troll. The person who wrote this thinks they are a know it all now that they've written enough term papers. We know who you are.
These are Soviet WWII tanks (not too common, though). It would be interesting to have those models fighting against Shermans etc...
The T-35: a heavy but quite slow tank with five(!) turrets - a challenge for fire control
The BT-7: a light tank, but a fast one - max speed 86 km/h (on road, tracks off - no, I'm not kidding). A real winner in a race, and not exactly easy to hit (but if you hit it, it's down...)
Another fun thing would be rc planes with guns similar to those on these tanks. Imagine a fighter duel between a P-58 Mustang and a Zero, or an Me bf 109 and a Spitfire... (avoiding crashes could be a bit hard, though)
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
I was going to put off the kids thing a few more years, but I need a justifiable reason to spend $125 on these things. So, if there's any women out there who would like to get married and have my child soon there after, and also provide me with your Visa card so I can order these tanks (for are soon to arrive child), please send me a message.
Thanks
Cool features I haven't seen mentioned here yet:
They are a bit pricey, but the WWII Winter set includes two tanks, plus obstacles to hide behind and decals.
The only other downside is that they're a little fragile.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Who here has a Warhammer 40k map? I mean, the scale is practically perfect. Certainly close enough to make one heck of a battleground.
Now if I could only find someone near me.... hmmmmmm.
They're more "tank looking", which is neat.
From reading the manual, I think the ones linked can change channels, TG's site warns you to get different channel models for multiplayer, which makes me think it can't be changed, which sucks.
These are farily sophisticated, with changing behavior according to damage taken, and a couple of modes to ignore "friendly fire".
I don't know how the price compares, the TG ones are $60 each, I think that's in the ballpark.
The question I have is: are the beams compatible? What if I shoot a tank with my old laser tag pistol? Granted, I haven't come up with a reason I'd want to do that, but I'll bet that someone could.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
I couldn't agree more.
...and a right to a political, economic, and social situation in which these rights can be be realized.
Whether the actions of the Bush administration are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy in acting is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not an injustice or justice is done to the people of Iraq. Even if Bush called for the invasion of Iraq only to benefit oil companies and to ensure his re-election, this is irrelevant to the issue of whether injustice or justice is done to the people of Iraq. It has very little to do with "weapons of mass destruction". It has very little to do with "terrorism". It has very little to do with "threatening its neighbors". Whether or not there are other nations of people who also need to be freed is irrelevant to the matter of whether or not an injustice or justice is done to the Iraqi people.
Whether or not Bush or anyone else in Washington have even a single moral credit to their names, I don't care. A nation of 35 (?) million people matters more than whether or not Bush accrues moral virtue by taking the right actions for the right reasons.
We as members of the global community believe that people, simply in virtue of being people, have certain inalienable rights. They have a right to own property, to shelter, to nutrition, to have a job, to a livable wage, to equal pay for equal work, to pursue political office, to freely and openly express dissenting opinions about their government, to free and open elections, to commit to a relationship with a person of their choosing, to raise a family,
Certainly the U.S. does not exemplify all of these qualities and maybe not even most of them, but that does not change the simple fact that we have every reason to believe that the people of Iraq will be signifcantly more free and significantly more able to exercise these inalienable rights than they currently are or would have been in the forseeable future had this action not been taken.
It is a greater justice that is done to Iraq than in our time has been done to anyone else. Our administration may accrue moral blame by taking this action for the wrong reasons or where they had an obligation to help others in greater need, but again that is irrelevant to the matter of whether or not an injustice or justice is done to the people of Iraq.
From skimming the article, there's an "Advanced mode" that lets you set health and stuff, so I think you could set it up that way. I don't know if you can adjust speed, but that would be interesting as well: slow and powerful vs fast and fragile.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Amen brother. ;)
Although I too am not sure that the US is doing this for the right reasons, at the end of the day if the people of Iraq don't like what we are doing, (and this is the important part)
They can complain without being executed.
They can take their media out, record what they feel isn't right, and show the world. Again, without being executed. No matter what the US ends up doing there, I think this feature alone will make life a lot more livable for the Iraqi people.
On the off chance that we do indeed help them build a democratic and stable govt that isn't a pawn of the US govt and or of US oil companies, even better. But the whole "If you complain, your family gets killed." theory of the previous govt was a decent enough reason for us to go in there, WMD, terror ties, or not. IMHO, of course.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
should've ended the sanctions, (that would've prevented huge numbers of Iraqi deaths over the last 12 years)
Oh, do you mean via starvation? Because Saddam had the UN food and medicine for oil plan. That would end starvation. So what deaths do you mean?
Oh, I get it... you mean the non-economic deaths based upon the KILLING OF HIS OWN CITIZENS. I think you have no cogent argument about the UN sanctions causing the deaths of Iraqis. Please respond. I would love to hear your justification that the UN caused more deaths of Iraqis after the First Gulf War than Saddam did. Please back it up with facts.
Saddam kills his own people. I want to see Defense Department documents that prove we were complicit in the death of Iraqis that you claim. I can show you videotape right now that says that Saddam was a killer. You need to get your priorities straight, and stop reading websites that have outrageous claims and no proof.
For some time now I've felt that toys like this (especially the ones with the rotating turrets) could be a cool mall concession. Arcades no longer offer any appreciable advantage over home systems and my local mall has a kiddy train that goes around incircles. Put the two together with some sand and rocks and your have fun for all ages! I have to think a 5 or ten min frag session would make more than some crappy train.
it's nice to see that slashdot is continuing it's progression to becoming just a place where people can advertise and peddle garbage to a bunch of geeks for free.
Is this:
There's no question that, all other things unchanged, the world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein. What I don't like is the other things in the world we've changed by removing him this way. (this quote stolen from another poster, my apologies for not quoting him/her)
Nobody's arguing that Saddam's a nice guy. What many of the anti-war protesters are arguing is telling the UN security council to "STFU" and plodding ahead just the same.
That damage to world relations, I believe, is far greater than waiting longer to get people organized.
And, I don't believe for a minute that the US has any proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The two attempts to show this proof we've seen, communications and photographs, were so poor that they were shown to be incorrect (I read: faked) within a week of their release to authorities.
Claims that "we can't tell, because it would risk lives" are pure smoke. For one, its not like showing Hans Blix and the president of France the information is the same as posting it on the net. For another, if you have the proof and its this important, withdraw or extract those informants.
I'm not against removing Saddam. I am against ignoring the other residents on this planet. I think its absurd to think that we're going to "bring democracy and conflict resolution" to a nation by ignoring the democratic processes that the world has set up to resolve conflicts.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
What better place to get air support for your ground troops than:
Interactive Toy Concepts
This company has everything from blimps to B2 bomber, and more.
is actually called combat sumo. I would pay good money to see actual tanks do that in real life. I'd laugh my ass off.
Forget the kids, but if you need a g/f to be your tank opponent, I'm interested.
I wish mods could go above 5.
That's one of the funniest posts I've read all year...
I'm not getting one until it supports the Ogg format.
My
Limekiller
..where the little guys inside jump out and run
when attack helicopters appear..or when there is
a report of a B52 strike incoming.
Me Smash you with small foot in head pain very small so brain be squished
From Konami's OWN English version page:
Please enjoy yourself using this manual.
I sure hope you DON'T use that manual to enjoy yourself! You might want to try reading it first. Or maybe printing it out. =)
No wonder the US is always going after a war. I really have a problem when anything related to war is turned into a game (see Sony trademarking "Shock and Awe"). What's next: toy civilians that bleed just like real ones?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Someone already mentioned hooking up an IR controller to their serial port, but what about for over the net multiplayer? Some strategicly placed cameras, 4 tanks, 4 players. I'd do this to have battles with my friends over fields of 486 hardware. I'm sure you could figure out some cool scenarios too with extra IR receivers/senders on the battle field. Stationary guns for defense, minefields, etc. Maybe a game where one team must defend an IR target while the other attacks. This is a must have toy.
Cthulhu Saves.
Time for mini, tabletop, real bzflag. How can I get one with the guided missile option?
Someone mentioned that the 'firing' LED is not actually on the turret. Assuming it's not too big, couldn't a hole be drilled in the turret and have the LED placed inside the end of it? So if you were to motorize it, it would fire in the direction the turret's facing. And let's admit it, sometimes you just get stuck on the sand dunes.
Radio controlled tanks are nothing new - my neighbor had one 60 years ago.
He sat inside it, a radio signal came in, and in response to that message, he shot at Germans.
You don't say.
Infuriate left and right
Do the Iraqi mini tanks catch on fire faster?
The easily ignited flour is simply due to the fact that it's a carbohydrate, a very refined and rather dry one at that.
It's actually been a long-standing movie trick for big-looking explosions (for those working in smaller budgets) to use dry powders rather than traditional tamped (black powder) explosives or liquids because of the safety in handling it.
For information only (CYA disclaimer): A bag of white flower, laid flat with a good deal of liquid rubber cement on the up-side (or other suitable difficult to extinguish semi-plasti napalm) thrown from a high place on to something hard and flat will yield a spectacular fire storm. It'll also surprise you how much flour is left afterward - one big firy blast, and then a big white mess on the landing site.
Again, don't try this at home. Or at your enemies' homes.
You know, with a REALLY FAST reverse?
As you said, looks interesting. I believe it is a Christian geek site as some of the "Ask Jesusgeek" questions refer to setting up a cyber cafe at a church. Also the Theology section kinda gives it away.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Anyone Remember Bolo?
That was an awesome Tank Program... anyone that remember it know if there is a more recent version(win or linux)?
moo.
Yeah. And KMFDM & Doom caused Columbine. And playing D&D leads to Satanism. And hot oatmeal leads to chronic masturbation. And my penchant for Civ 3... too dastardly to mention. Same hype, different day.
Shall we start burning books?
Uhmm, they CAN be changed. You're not a geek unless you can figure it out, too.
Frequencies can ALWAYS be changed, it's just a matter of how much work you're willing to put into it.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
Has anybody played with the Smartland combat vehicles? Here's a retailer that has 'em for 16 bucks. Are they any good?
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
Damn internet. I can't read asian text...And whats with this blue puzzle piece that all of these sites are using?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.