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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."
http://www.konami.co.jp/th/micro_ir/combat/english /index.html
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.
No, those are not the DigiQ tanks. I own a pair of DigiQs, and they are about half that size and quite a bit more historically accurate (the DigiQ line is modeled -- as I said, somewhat accurately -- on WWII tanks). Furthermore, the ThinkGeek tanks are hard-coded to one frequency while the DigiQ can be reprogrammed. DigiQ also have multiple battle modes, including a very fun "simulation" (where different models have different ammo payloads and reload times).
Do you like Japanese imports?
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.
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