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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."
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
The writeup of the article with the same text is already on JesusGeeks.
Doesn't the logo remind you of ChronoCross/Trigger? Strange....
-- Breaking Windows: Not just for kids anymore KDE
Yeah Mr. Wizard did the dust explosion trick way back in the day (episode 16).
:)
Many different substances can be explosive given the right amount of oxygen surrounding the flammable particles. It's a fairly common trick that middle school science teachers do to wake up their students.
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.
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!
looks just like a real (scale) plane
flies well
is relatively inexpensive and easy to make
Pick any two!
Even so, some people do do R/C combat with scale models ... but it's a lot of work making the planes and keeping them flying :)
R/C plane combat is certainly done. Some is done with infrared `guns', like this, some is done trying to cut a ribbon trailing behind the other plane, and some is done by literally trying to bump the other plane out of the sky.
In all cases, even when you're not trying to, the planes tend to collide quite often. So you need planes that are very resiliant, and that usually means that they aren't going to be scale models of anything -- instead, you concentrate on them flying reasonably well and being tough.
There's two kinds of big gun shooting direct fire and indirect fire. Direct fire is aim by the gunner, it's what tanks do aim at the target, add in a little super-elevation to correct for the rounds free fall in flight determined by the targets range, and some defection adjustment to adjust for the round going off course from the wind and let'er rock and roll. In direct fire you want first round kills because when you fire, everybody knows where to shoot back at.
Indirect fire is what artillery does, the round goes through a high ballistic trajectory, but you want the round to travel in as low a trajectory as possible; the higher the round travels, the more likely that it will be picked up by a counter-mortar radar which can calculate the point of origin so the opposing force can shoot back at you. the FO, Forward Observer see's the traget, and tells the FDC, Fire Direction Computer, the approximate grid co-ordinates of the traget, his direction to the target, and what the target is. The FDC then calculates what direction to point the guns in, what elevation to point at, and what charge to use, how much powder. the guns then aim at a two stakes in the ground and fires, usualy one round from the number two gun in the center. If the round hits with-in the burst-radious of the target, then all the guns fire, if not the FO tells the FDC how many meters to left or right, or to add or subtract, the FDC re-computes and 2 gun re-shoots. as soon as the target is hit the unit moves, and re-sets up. This is called shoot and scoot, because if you're still there, the other guys are going to reach out and touch you if they can.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds