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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.
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
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.
...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
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.
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...
> 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
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.
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
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.
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.
I'm not getting one until it supports the Ogg format.
My
Limekiller
So yeah, we were complicit in the deaths of lots of Iraqi children. The sanctions *weakened* the Iraqi people, forcing them to depend on a brutal dictator to survive. And who's fault was that? Ours. The sanctions made Saddam stronger.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
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?
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
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.
Yes, I do mean the members of the UN which insisted on continued sanctions. They weren't exactly united behind the idea.
The UN wanted to end them depending on Saddam's behavior. It was the brilliant move of Bush I and Clinton to give Saddam *no* incentive to change by stating, quite clearly, that the sanctions would remain in power so long as he was in charge.
I never said that the U.S. was the only country to blame. You assumed that. And you know what happens when you assume things.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
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.
Call me, this is my number:
(718) 546-0700
Ask for Shawn.