Slashdot Mirror
The Crawlspace Tankcam
Saint Aardvark writes "Here's a page on the fun you can have with a remote control Abrams tank and a wireless video camera. "I really wanted a way to look for under house leaks and stuff and, in the manner of a responsible home owner, get early warning so I could increase the effectiveness of... Ok, that's a lie. In reality, I wanted an excuse to put a camera on my R/C tank and drive it around scary tunnels, and this just happened to fit my purposes perfectly." Movies included!"
Like the bigger version of these Desktop R/C Mini-Rovers with optional wireless video cam?
:)
Here's the Coral Link since this guy put so many photos on one page, I read its hit counter at 230, we'll see how long before it's dead
Movies Included = Slashdotted Soon
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Also This sould be useful for upskirting and makeing fortunes (9.95 USD) on the interweb
I have good Karma, I moderate fairly. What did I do to deserve this?
My hosting service just caught fire.
Mirror if needed
The page include a 6 digit counter at the bottom of the page. As we speak, its increasing by about 100 hits every 10 seconds... poor guy :)
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It looks like he was almost eaten by a grue.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Got stuck on a rock? Maybe it has the same syndrome that the Mars rover had ;)
99 bottles of beer in 175 characte
Why not drag a power/control cable behind it? The battery wouldn't be a limitation and if it gets stuck, give the cable a light tug. Also, you would lose a lot of weight from the battery. You could upgrade the motor to the gun turret allowing a greater range than "down" and "slightly less down"
I read a story about exploring small tunnels in the pyramids using things like this (not toys, but the same idea) and the people doing it were finding lots of neet stuff.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
http://blizzard.rwic.und.edu/~nordlie/robotics/mar k6.html
Obviously, now that we have recon covered we need to think about adding offensive capabilities. I mean, what good is it to identify all the major structural supports if you have no way to take them out? Robot Wars-esque saw blades are probably unsuited for implementation on the existing hardware base, even if external power could be supplied (viz. those "anemic motors"), so I'm thinking along the lines of a small thermal lance or incendiary package.
"There are hundreds of game theorists at the gates, sir, and they want to hold an election!"
"Those were not his knees, captain. Not everyone keep their genitals in the same place"
welcome my new tank-driving, mini Mag-Lite toting, camera carrying overlords.
I kinda stopped reading at "remote control Abrams tank". That's just plain fun, with or without the wirless video camera. I don't need no webpage to tell me that.
I mean, come on. As if driving a remote control M-1 Abrams blind isn't "fun" enough in the first place.
(Although I admit - probably more fun if you have a remote control video camera, rather than having to be anywhere near the tank in order to get footage of all the car-smashing, lightpole-snapping... well, like Mom said, it's all fun until someone gets their house crushed like a bug.)
Anyone else think for a second that it was a remote control ACTUAL Abrams?
Now that'd be a hack.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
"You are likely to be eaten by a Grue."
Iraqi /. readers are impressed with the huge size of our houses.
I have the same camera. The 6 infrared LEDs on that camera are inoperative. They only work on the black & white camera model, which shares the exact same housing. The circuitry required for infrared to augment an RGB display is much more complex than the circuitry required to augment a monochromatic display, and thus couldn't fit within the housing.
But there's no tape on Mars to attach the camera to the gun barrel!