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Monster Garage's Robotic R/C Car Challenge
KMan writes "According to Roboteq Discover Channel's Monster Garage will be airing an epsisode where the challenge will be to build an R/C controlled car (full sized/real deal). 'Details' on how to build your own R/C car can be found at Roboteq along with airing time info for the Monster Garage episode."
... all the amazing rc car deals I keep getting in my email?!?
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/03/30/0510225.shtm l?tid=133&tid=159
Though the linked video file is no longer there.
Some guys have done it before with a camry and video taped the entire deal. You can get it off of my site at http://mrgravy.com/uploads/remote_camry.wmv (download it if it doesn't stream fast enough). I originally got it from StileProject (don't ever go there kids), and who know's where it came from before then. Defintely worth a watch.
is there anything robotic about a RC car/Boat/plane ?
its like those TV shows battlebots/robotwars that are simply glorified radio control cars, can a radio controlled device really be called a robot ? or is it just another way to make RC seem "cool" if you add the word "robot"
I really don't see the point in this. I guess it's an ok novelty thing, but who else than James Bond has use for a R/C car?
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
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Is it just me, or is Jessie just not into doing Monster Garage anymore? He barely shows up during the build. He only seems interested in trying out the monster the day of, and seems highly critical. Even the handing out of the tools at the end is very half-hearted. I'd be surprised if he signed up for another season.
had this as their finale in their show a couple of years ago
Isn't R/C short for radio controlled. Is it suppsed to be a radio controlled controlled car? (the control-unit itself is radio controlled perhaps)
Pardon me for conTrolling
Scitne aliquis remedium potimum crapulae?
This has been done on both MythBusters and Junkyard Wars. Nothing new.
At least in the Junkyard version, the two teams fought the RC cars Battlebots style, and Mythbusters strapped a set of rocket engines to it!
Don't get me wrong, Monster Garage is a good show, but sometimes it's a little overhyped.
=Smidge=
Hmm. Am I the only one who thinks this might be a backdoor pilot for a Knight Rider revival?
"It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue." -- Zork
one episode t hey turned regular cars into remote controlled cars and did a demolition derby for them.
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
A videoclip of a R/C'ed real car. WARNING! Sexually explicit banner ads.
An R/C car that becomes a streetsweeper that becomes a lawnmower that becomes a hot air balloon that becomes a figure-8 car.
Shark-jumping
How 'Monster Garage' Works
Twisted metal mind
Almost-related ramblings of a software developer
Reminds me of when Doc Brown put Einstein into the front seat of the DeLorean and drove it around with a radio controller.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I would say that RC cars are indeed a type of robot. In fact, MIT has a webpage on how to convert RC Cars to a robot. See:
http://web.mit.edu/tas/www/traxx/rt_main.htm
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I won't be satisfied until the R/C car is also capable of travelling through time.
qntm.org
Sorry, I effed up the last link's URL and forgot to include one:
Almost-related ramblings of a software developer
Why is Jesse James so popular?
Lost interest in that worthless show when then converted a Mustang into a lawnmower. Hanging chrome plated non-functional mower blades from the car doors is suppose to be cool? Caught one of the later shows where they tried to drive a couple backhoe blades off a pair of hydraulic pumps using a little tiny fan belt coupled to a car motor. Seems they could figure out why the fan belt kept braking. Jesse was there the whole time and didn't catch on. Makes me wonder how real his bikes are. Don't count on Monster Garage for any useful inspiration.
has already done it. Wouldn't you rather watch the abusive and dysfuntional family that is "American Chopper" anyway?
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
I'm sure "real" race fans would never go for this, but NASCAR has gotten lamer and lamer as the number of safety restrictions have gone up; the only "real" racing is on short tracks anymore, and those are rapidly in decline as NASCAR moves races out of the hills into big, fast, new superspeedway style tracks.
The cars are so hobbled by aerodynamics rules and sometimes even restrictor plates that you don't get racing, you get single-file drafting and a ton of pit strategy, and neither is exciting racing. Competitive pits can be exciting, but pit strategy isn't per se, and neither is a long line of cars going round in circles.
Having the drivers race their cars via advanced simulators would eliminate the need for many of the safety enhancements; the owners would drive crash prevention via economics, not "concern for drivers" since no drivers would ever get hurt. Drivers could drive much more aggressively and the cars could be given much more competitive power bands.
It's not "real" racing, but from a distance does it matter if there's a person in the car or not?
R/C equipment fails. Even in a standard sized R/C car or plane, things can and do go wrong. Planes can fly miles away before they run out of gas, and cars can end up doing doughnuts at full speed until they hit something or flip over.
With a full sized car, the consequences of a failure will be much worse. Imagine losing control of your car and having it go to full speed, straight ahead -- merely being on a test track won't be enough, as the car could easily plow through fences, barriers and even buildings. And you'd have no way to stop it.
I'd strongly suggest that nobody attempt this without extensive experience with both R/C stuff and with modifying full sized cars. And I'd also suggest installing a kill switch of some sort that will immediately kill the engine, and have this switch controlled by a different R/C transmitter on a different channel entirely, with a different battery -- just in case.
Also, the picture shows a Futaba 6X transmitter -- be aware that by default transmitters like this are on the 72 mhz frequency band (in the US), and that the use of the 72 mhz band for controlling ground vehicles is *illegal*. Instead, you're supposed to use the 75 mhz band. Most R/C car transmitters have at most three channels, so people building this sort of thing will be looking at airplane equipment for the extra channels, but you need to be aware that you can't just use any old equipment you find -- you'll need to special order 75 mhz equipment from the manufacturers to be legal (yes, it is available and it doesn't even cost much more. But it is rare, and it's unlikely you'll find it in somebody's attic unless they're into large R/C cars or robots.)
it's called combat cars and is on bravo in the UK. People fix up bangers (old cars) to be radio controlled and they go through some challenges and then trash each other's cars. It's just like robot wars etc. but with real cars. Certainly not news, this.
Can't find much info about it, but it's mentioned here!
Great fun to watch when someone's put in a fair amount of effort...
http://www.frenchgeek.com/
MG is a fun show. But I'm not real happy with having Jesse as host. There's no question he's a talented metal worker, but the stoned surfer dude personna gets old really fast. I think the final straw for me was when he threw a hissy fit and walked off the build for 3 days because he didn't like the project then came back and dissed the contestants for not building what he wanted. (I think it was the hover DeLorean episode.) One of the contestants stood up to him and Jesse threw yet another stink fit and tossed him of the team. What a fucking baby.
At least Junkyard Wars has more personable hosts. But they need to bring Cathey Rogers back. Monster House is cool too.
When all else fails, run.
...because the R/C car cannot make decisions on its own. You have to see it to believe it:
http://inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ee192
Now, thats more like it. Yes, it does not have a camera to emulate vision. But, it is much closer to a robot than a crummy computer controlled R/C car.
While not autonomous, it is still a subset of robotics.
One future, two choices. Oppose them or let them destroy us.
At least I know the redteam has already done this. If you're building an autonomous car, making it remote controlled is a very early step along the way.
The Red Team has taken serious safety procautions that this Monster Garge thing seems not to address. There are E-Stop buttons all along the perimeter of the car, and the E-Stop mechanism isn't just an electrical cutoff, but also a huge brake on the drivetrain which engages if power is cut. I would advise anyone trying to build one of these things to use a similar system, since a runaway car could be expensive both in terms of dollars and lives.
Sorry.
DH: Kit
Car: Yes Michael?
DH: Swing around the corner and pick me up a date.
Car: Get bent, Michael!
There was an episode of junkyard wars where they made full size RC cars out of scrap, and had them fight in an arena...
I have this weird beleif that the fellas on Junkyard wars might be a little more bright to hvae thought of and accomplished this goal in 10 hours, instead of having all the time in the world to work on it.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
I often thought about doing this to the small (van-chassis) RV we used for a hot-air balloon chase vehicle. From the balloon, you can always see which backroad goes to the field you're aiming for...and those in the basket are always cursing the idiots on the ground who are going down what is obviously (from 500') a dead end.
;)
Existing vehicle systems are pretty well set up for this in the modern American land-yacht. All that effort to isolate you from actual vehicle dynamics mean that they've presented you with controls that are pretty much just servo inputs. (Yes, there is a mechanical link in most cases, but they're servo-assisted)
Steering and brake are both heavily boosted, and throttle doesn't require much force.
We were talking about this fifteen years ago...doesn't seem like much of a challenge now.
-Z
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
http://entermyworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=153
:-D
Hopefully that site allows direct links to UBB threads...
Rich W was one of the builders on the DeLorean hovercraft episode, and also behind the monster GT40. He has some interesting insight into what really went on during production, and also into Jesse's frame of mind. I thought there were some other threads on that same board where he went into greater detail, but this is the only one I can find.
It would be interesting if the MG producers asked him back, so he could replicate the remote-controlled time machine from the beginning of "Back to the Future."
Can you imagine your typical slashdot geek appearing on the same show with the same type of people who used to beat them up in school?
Don't get me wrong, Monster Garage is a good show, but sometimes it's a little overhyped.
The only hype I see here is coming from the person that posted this to Slashdot.
Discovery Channel are not hyping this episode more than any other... it's getting the exact same "next week on monster garage" television advertisments.
I would agree that some of the monster garage challenges aren't too awe-inspiring... but I'd rather watch the lame shark cage pontoon episode again than watch Friends or SurvivalShowOfTheWeek.
Slashdot must be really be scraping the bottom of the barrel for this story. With a group of experts, and a $3000 budget, and lots of time, Jesse James manages to barely finish his wundercars each show. The guys from Junkyard Wars made two in 10 hours with the same amoun t of manpower. All the teams in the DARPA challenge are going way beyond what Jesse GED and his merry band of hacks could ever accomplish. Hate to be a snob, but does this geek-neating troglydite really deserve equal billing with other /. fare?
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
What do the cops do when they pull one of these over for speeding?
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They did something similar on Discovery's sister network, TLC some time ago....but with two such cars....for a remote controlled jousting.
(you can see the name on the side of their truck)
Here's a TechTV interview with them.
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