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Libyan Rebels Weaponize Power Wheels Toys
Danny Rathjens pointed out a story about the DIY weapons created by Libyan rebels. One of the more interesting is a machine gun drone created from a Power Wheels-style ATV. Rebels outfit the toys with a small cannon and attach controls via long wire. A solider can hide while he uses a small television and simple controls to move the vehicle and fire the gun. A similar system is also outfitted to a toy truck with a machine gun on top.
Lock Tony Stark in a cave with nothing more than a forge and some scrap iron and he'll invent a power armor combat suit with freakin' lasers.
Still, kinda cool in a low-rent A-Team way.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Desperation is the true mother of invention. These Lybian rebels are determined, and it's impressive what people can do when faced with something that important to them but a limited budget.
What comes next? Weapon grade Lego?
Do we know anything about these rebels other than they don't like Gaddafi? How do we know we're not helping an Al Queada style organisation get into power? I have a bad feeling about this.
Libyan Rebels cost for a robotic gun. About $500 after a few weeks of tinkering.
Probably fails 10% of the time.
US cost for a robotic gun. 5 million per unit which don't work when first deployed after a 300 million dollar development program taking 4 years to complete. Eventually 90% reliable in the field.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Now we're going to get weapons-export laws on Tonka trucks, and mandatory background checks for a Barbie Jeep.
I'm surprised it's taken this long for this to happen. I remember "hacking" my Big Track when I was a kid by using the 1/8 inch jack that was used to activate the dumping bin to activate a solenoid. Of course my parents only allowed me to use a toy pellet gun.
My Big Traks's wait is almost over! Their day of glory is nigh!
Someones been playing to much Call of Duty. I'll be impressed if they manage to call in an SR-71.
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
man, even the A-Team has to cut back...
I've often wondered whether powerwheels type toys would make a good hackable robot platform.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
A-Team - if there ever was a show that could have been written week and week out by a script that was it.
Mix in scenes of Mudoch being "crazy" and Face "charming" hot chick.
I'm sure that "writer" made millions.
Life's not fair.
... very entertaining propaganda movie :)
I say, to hell with them all. Let Ghadafi blow them to smithereens !! Matter of fact, let the Taliban have Afghanistan. Let Shitites and Summis have Iraq. And by George, let Tibet FREE !! I mean, come on already !! Isn't it time WE do something to free Tibet !! Let's just PRETEND TIBET HAS OIL !!
...to the "Pow Pow Powerwheels" jingle.
It would have taken the Army 8 years and $100's of millions of dollars for the US to do this. *Sigh* We really should take a lesson in innovation.
I can't believe this is on slashdot. They control it using long wires? Man, if they had some wireless stuff going on with an Arduino or something, then it would be news. Long wires are sooo 1990's. /sarcasm
When I was in Iraq 2006-2008 I was often frustrated by how slow new weapons and defensive mechanism were developed by the DA. Often we would end up fabricating our own IED countermeasures using whatever material we found on our base. We often surprised ourselves with the effectiveness of the ideas we came up with. I've often wondered since then how much more effective that process would have been if it had been possible to attach a team of computer scientists and structural engineers to an Army unit. Instead we ended up trying not to get blown up and hope that someone somewhere was getting our INTEL and developing new vehicles and supplies to counteract a very intelligent and capable enemy.
BTW my time in Iraq pretty much solidified my opinion that our presence over there is pointless. Assume that we were able to establish a democracy in that country it wouldn't take long for it to fall. All it would take is one Sheik to disagree with the constitution and/or government and automatically the tribe under that Sheik would automatically support the Sheik and work to undermine the government. Tribe and family is far more important in that culture than individual rights and government. So why try to force on them a government that runs counter to their culture. Why is it assumed that everyone really wants to be in a democracy? There is no such thing as one government that fits all people. I tend to be more libertarian but that doesn't mean that a socialist style government is necessarily wrong. I only think that people should be given the choice of moving to whatever country best fits their belief system. Lol let the flaming begin.
If there is no God then free will is an illusion.
So now they're pow-pow-pow-pow-pow-pow-pow, pow-pow-pow-pow, pow-pow-pow-pow-pow-pow-powerwheels!
And what's a "solider"?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
However I have it on good authority that Gaddafi is lining up crack troops of 5 year olds to disable then break the enemy weapons within minutes by being sick all over them then trying to feed them to an angry cat.
Too much resources - everything is made to order. Design and production takes time from innovation, and the result is layer upon layer of bureacracy. Besides it's too cozy - your life and future are not under immediate threat and there's too much money at hand.
It's amazing what dedicated DIY types can come up with.
Congress bans all Power Wheels.
"Think of the children" mentioned 100 times in bill.
I always wanted one of these as a kid. Awsome job libyan rebels!
What comes next? Weapon grade Lego?
Ever step barefoot on a 1x1 in the middle of the night on your way to the bathroom?
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
? "more than that for your comment"
Which doesn't mean US troops on the line aren't doing plenty of DIY themselves.
Weaponizing radio-controlled toy vehicles? Life imitates art.
Watching the video, and the homemade RPG reminded me of a SAM my cousins and I built as kids.
1) An Estes model rocket...a WAC Corporal...with a B8-4 motor.
2) A shipping tube with a launch rod glued to the bottom cap.
3) Copper strips glued/screwed to bottom cap with wires running outside to a Burgess B battery and momentary switch from Radio Shack.
You slid the rocket down the tube on the launch rod with the nichrome igniter wires touching the copper strips. Aim, press the switch, and whoosh....a balsa and cardboard Stinger.
We didn't have the C4 and blasting caps for the warhead portion (thankfully), but we could aim and fire a $4 rocket.
The nosecone was to be built from C4 with a blasting cap on the nose and underneath. If you missed a direct impact, the ejection charge from the motor would slam a washer into the underneath blasting cap and still detonate the missile. At least that was our thinking.
Again, we never had anything that actually exploded, but something like this would probably work against low-flying helicopters. A C or D motor would give more range, etc.
Yes, we had way too much time on our hands. One of our test flights did cause 3 casualties...to a neighbor's chickens. A fin came off on launch and the rocket arced into the neighbor's chicken yard at feeding time. The rocket didn't hit the massed birds but 3 apparently died from fright. We paid for the dead birds from allowances and odd jobs.
Years later, in the Air Force, I was assigned to the USAF Rocket Propulsion Lab at Edwards AFB. I managed not to kill or blow up anything there.
I am my own gestalt.
Give it 10 years, american children will be getting the same thing for christmas (batteries not included).
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
I can just see an innocent looking Barbie pink corvette equipped with weapons ala Kitt from Knight Rider. Hasselhoff cannot be far behind.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Once this civil war is over, we will be left with taxi drivers, engineers and school teachers with experience in guerrilla warfare, improvised weapons and explosives manufacturing, sabotage and military / para-military tactics. I just hope they all return to teaching, driving hack and designing pipelines once Ghadaffi is deposed. Without "boots on the ground" NATO and the US has very little influence on the leadership and/or world view of the various factions that currently are united against their resident tyrant. But Ghadaffi is an equal opportunity tyrant who made enemies of both Muslim fundamentalists and progressive modern Muslims and secular Libyans. Currently all of these groups are united to oust Colonel Crazy, but if history is any indication, once that goal is in sight, they will start vying for who controls the future of Lybia. The Mujahideen, who were once western allies, begat the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
If you aren't part of the solution, then there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
This version probably breaks one in three times you try to use it, randomly discharges it's weapon whenever there's a small gust of wind, and occasionally blows up.
There's nothing wrong with a bit of solid DIY hacking when you're in a tight fix, but it's apples-and-oranges with large scale engineering projects.
That's because of the paper trail. In the government every bolt and screw has to have a paper trail all the way back to the mine where the ore was collected as well as a certificate of authenticity that the bolt/screw has been designed precisely to spec and rigorously tested. Then the paper and ink that was used to make that paper trail has to have a paper trail all the way back to the lumber used to make the pulp etc. That's why there are a hundred desk jobs per one engineer.
I'd like to know when these will be available at my local Toys R Us... for... my kid...
Don't you think the troops would just love the handcrafted, improvised with *AMERICAN!* ingenuity, cobbled together with no quality control "devices" instead of the cold, heartless, tested, efficient, lighter, tougher, hardened equipment they are normally issued?
Well, Norway developed the Naval Strike Missile for just $300 million... Which is quite impressive considering that it is the only missile of its type available today.
Transform and roll out!
I8-D
Some time ago someone pointed out to me that powerwheels toys would be dramatically more fun for the parents if they could be remote-controlled like giant R/C cars. As it is right now, when junior is out riding his mini-whatever-vehicle, he inevitably will get it stuck and not know how to put it in reverse. If the parents had a remote control for it that could override junior's input, they could throw it in reverse, drive it out, and bring junior back to the top of the driveway, without having to get off the front step.
Win, win, win.
Although putting a camera and a machine gun on it is pretty clever, too.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Umm, real life imitate game?
"They say we're bringing democracy to Iraq. I can't wait to see how we do it."
They played to much Call of Duty imho :)
I think they would prefer not to roll the dice on whether their robot gun is going to shoot the enemy, shoot themselves, or just blow up spectacularly like a big "look who's hiding here" sign.
I work in EMS. Sure, I look at a $10k power stretcher and go "I could do that for cheaper"
But could I? Here's the thing - for mission-critical equipment, you don't fuck around. Be smart about how you spend your money - which means you should get the tool you need and know it'll work right every time. Don't waste it, by any means, but if you mean it, you'll need to pay.
And most importantly, if we have an equipment failure, we can point at the manufacturer. I'm sure some of the price goes to a lawsuit fund, but again - this is what you pay for.
For the record, that stretcher has worked for more than 5 years and more than 50% over weight specs, with no problems yet or for the foreseeable future. And it was worth every penny.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
no it could. It cost 60k-150K, depending on the unit. It's a lot more sophisticated and reliable, and we can mount a very wide range of weaponry.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Get the rebel.
Why not just put a kid with a machine gun in it?
Win Win Win.
Ah yes, lets not let the kids figure stuff out for themselves.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If you want something weaponless but long range, www.osbots.com sells them for $150 onwards. You have to provide your own Android phone.
I came up with this idea years ago for the military but I've never told anyone. I was worried it would give terrorists ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha
The "pacifist"-labelled engineer who says he will kill but then wants to not be like his enemy is probably mostly fooling himself ultimately. Much political violence starts with those words....
So much innovation there, why can it not be applied in other ways to create abundance for all? How long woudl any regime last if everyone just stops listening at once?
http://the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html
"A lot of the constraints on us, a lot of the ah, ah - strings that hold us like puppets are really inventions of our own mind. I'm not saying that there aren't armies and police and various ways to punish deviants. But there isn't any way to punish a LARGE NUMBER of deviants. There isn't any way to do that. It's too expensive to even try to do that, unless you can colonize the minds of children growing up so they become their own police. And they will report other children who are deviating."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Or other countries' troops, given some of the sub-standard USArmy equipment they're given...
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Just wonder how accurate the toy truck is. The video shows it jumping all over the place from the recoil.
they built radio controlled cars... should be able to make some radio controlled "Technicals" and use radio to control the weapons as well... putzing about with toys... pah, should be gutting the toys and using the goodies contained within to control real hardware...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
...er Wheels
I think you should re-read Duradin's comment... and check again for sarcasm. Good points otherwise though.
"This should be fun, and by fun, I mean a wholly depressing insight into the cognitive ability of some grown adults."
Canadian infantry used remote control aircraft and VGA web cams that took a photo every few seconds that they then downloaded when they landed the aircraft.
"This version probably breaks one in three times you try to use it, randomly discharges it's weapon whenever there's a small gust of wind, and occasionally blows up."
Bullshit, just absolute bullshit. There's a difference between "being less reliable than professionally engineered and tested devices" and being complete shit. It's really not that hard to somewhere between the two.
this smells of improvised weapons as adviced by people who do not want to be seen being behind the scene!
Ah yes, lets not let the kids figure stuff out for themselves.
Do you realize the age and size of kids who are appropriate for power wheels? They generally can't understand complicated instructions like "put it in reverse" (assuming it has reverse and you know where the switch is - the answers to both vary widely across models even from the same manufacturer). On top of that they generally don't have the strength to climb out/off of vehicle and turn it around if they drove into an immovable object and don't have reverse.
So in other words, in many cases "let the kids figure stuff out for themselves" just doesn't apply to power wheels and the kind of problems kids run into on their own while driving them. By the time they are old enough to figure it out, they are too large to use it, or they are already using faster moving forms of transportation like bicycles, roller skates, or shoes with laces.
Hence I'm going to wager you have never seen a kid drive one and run into these problems, or you would understand why this would be useful. Parents who have had kids rid these things can tell you they spend almost as much time walking after them to turn them around (or pull them off the grass) as they spend actually watching junior drive it. Of course, both of those times are trumped by time spent charging the damned things, but that is a different problem.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The US has given $billions to contractors to develop pretty much the same technology which Libyan truck drivers are welding together in their garages.
As much as it's geeky and cool, these weapons would be incredibly poor for real world usage, to the point where they're detrimental.
The remote controlled mini ATV. What's the range? I'd guess given the electronics they have access to, 50m or so (and you can't hide behind cover). Also, presumably in an actual gunfight you won't be able to have a guy standing next to it to hold up the ammo belt so it doesn't get caught on the car or run over. Then there's rough terrain, recoil, and the fact it's in a dry, host, dusty envoironment.
The remote controlled turret? The spread of the bullets it fires is insane, It'd be easy to imagine a Pulp Fiction style scenario where the bullets completely fail to hit the enemy, you certainly couldn't reliably aim it at someone a mid distance away. Then there's the incredibly narrow viewing. The vehicle would be far far safer with a manned gun, you're more likely to see an enemy, more likely to hit him and if the gun jams, you're not fucked.
After seeing the /. summary title I found myself reading that in Duke Nukem's voice. 0.o
how is babby formed?
...until things settle down, and then I can visit a Lybian army surplus store. Guess what, kids? Santa got you some extreme Power Wheels this year!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Reminds me of the expose piece done by the VBS media crew in Pakistan. They found people making clones of high powered rifles and pistols in dirt floor machine shop shacks in Pakistan to resell. The VBS guys tried some out too I recall and found they are very excellent replicas. How much does the US military spend on a single M4 or M16?
And this is why I created Fatwa Barbie and Anti-Semite Ken, freedom fighters for the glory of our glorious state, Burkastan. Fatwa Barbie comes with 15 different ways to ambush soldiers. Now I sing our national anthem: %%Burka Burka Burka, Burka Burka Burka Burka. All hail the People's Republic of Burkastan and remember, it's because of us that your TSA plans to strip-search you at the shopping mall. Oh, and soon we'll introduce RPG Nerf Guns, for rebels 6 and over.
I figured, but even if he was joking, others weren't. There does seem to be a belief that truly-critical equipment shouldn't be so darn expensive, and that can be a dangerous conclusion.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
This way probably gets them enough effectiveness for a minimum of resource expenditure. Beyond a certain point it's just not cost effective to improve your product.
Yeah right up until it accidentally kills its operator, at which point you scream "Why wasn't more testing done?" and "Why wasn't this properly designed?" and "this should have never been given to our troops in such an immature development state!" and "we need a senate investigation!". I recently heard a great quote (can't remember where): 'People are always in favour of de-regulation, right up until something does wrong. At which point they scream for more regulation'
Have you any idea how many Libyans died making this? How many Americans would you be comfortable with dying to get the cost down? How many of your family members would be comfortable with dying to get the costs down?
It would be nice if people thought before they typed here...
no innovation for USA, everything is blanket copyrighted here, if we tried something like this, we would be sued into oblivion.
Your comment on equality of weapons between civilians and the government is naive. Military training trumps civilian ineptitude every time.
Look up Shea's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. Our foremost Founding Father, Geo. Washington, had no qualms about how to deal with idiots pursuing what latter-day idiots would call a "2nd Amendment solution."
Ah yes, lets not let the kids figure stuff out for themselves.
Is that some sort of US euphemism for "fuck up"?
As a parent, I can tell you it stops being charming the tenth time you give a small kid something allegedly childproof and they have destroyed it five seconds after they're out of your sight.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Of course, both of those times are trumped by time spent charging the damned things, but that is a different problem.
My solution to that is never to charge batteries for kids' outside toys. Let them push the fuckers, it's good exercise.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Of course, both of those times are trumped by time spent charging the damned things, but that is a different problem.
My solution to that is never to charge batteries for kids' outside toys. Let them push the fuckers, it's good exercise.
Now I am certainly not a big believer in the power wheels as being great toys anyways; I obviously survived my childhood just fine without one. And I would be perfectly content to not buy any for any future children of my own.
However, if you own one, you know that they are utterly worthless without charged batteries. They aren't any fun to push - even parents can tell you that. If you want to give them something that is people-powered, get them a cozy coupe or a radio flyer instead; giving them a battery-operated toy and refusing to charge the batteries is rather cruel.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Fair point.
I was exaggerating for funsies, but my point does stand- even the "middle" quality level isn't ideal for military use. For example, a family member of mine bought a new car a few years ago. It was quite a nice car too- a mid-level BMW, fresh off the production line. But before he'd but 10k miles on the clock, he suffered a breakdown (an electrical fault grounded him when on a 2-hour-or-so motorway trip). For him this was irritating but not a big deal, he just called his breakdown service and had it towed home, got it fixed a couple of days later.
If he'd been relying on that equipment in a life-or-death situation, he'd have been in serious trouble. For civilian use the odd breakdown is no problem- think of all the computers or gadgets you've owned that have unexpectedly broken on you and life still went on- but it's different for emergency equipment or military gear. They need it to work every time, no problems, and be easy to fix when it does go wrong.
Because of the risks involved, they pay to have everything tested to within an inch of its life, and that costs a lot of money. You just don't do that for normal civilian gear.
We should take a lesson from this... get rid of the damn patents. We'd have to spend millions of dollars to prove that we didn't rip off someone else's design.