My RC Models

Fourteen year-old Gareth Hunt (not the guy from the coffee ads) is looking forward to winning a big radio controlled car race in a few weeks. Gareth, from The Lane, Sauchen, has been racing radio controlled cars for four years and competes in both indoor and outdoor races.

Gareth recently competed in the Much More Grand Prix in 2007 and finished as top junior.

Coming up shortly is what has been described as one of the world’s largest radio controlled car races, in Mineralwell Park, Stonehaven, and Gareth will be there to compete.

Running from June 13 - 15, the race is expected to have over one hundred entries on each day. Friday is the practise session.

Gareth says about his racing:

Now that I am older, I also enjoy the challenge of building my own cars, painting the body shells and setting up the car to race on different tracks and surfaces - this can be indoors on carpet or outdoors on tarmac.

I have won a few races locally in Inverurie and Stonehaven, I also had a good finish (third) in the UK juniors last summer.

I am looking forward to the Much More UK GP at Stonehaven because the driving standard will be really high and I will have the opportunity to race against drivers from all over the UK and from different parts of the world. Hopefully I can also learn more from these very experienced drivers to help me drive faster and to improve my car set up.

I will also be taking part in the UK juniors again this summer to be held in Bedworth, England, so it will be really busy again this summer racing both in local club rounds and national events.

I hope lots of people come along to watch the racing at Stonehaven - it’s really exciting and you will be surprised at the very high speeds the cars reach on the fastest section of the race track.

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One of the things I love about racing radio controlled cars is the fact that you can thrash the cars round the track without any thought or care for the car itself. It’s just a toy, therefore you can take corners at speeds (scale speeds obviously) you wouldn’t normally consider in your own car.

I always think this is much like when you’re driving a company car or a hire car. I recently had an accident in my own car and was given a hire car to drive around for a few weeks, and besides my initial disappointment that it was a lowly Mitsubishi Colt, I soon got into the swing of the hire car ethos. As in, I was revving the nuts off it.

It seems to be the case, when you have a car that isn’t your own you always treat it, well, a little more frivolously than your would had you bought the car yourself.

I imagine it may have been a little different had I been given a personal contract hire car, and was responsible for the wear on the car myself. I wasn’t though, the car was just a courtesy car and I was able to treat it just like an RC car, as in, not very well at all.

It was good fun too, though if I’d been a little more careful with my own car in the first place I wouldn’t have needed the hire car.

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Now I own a game called Mr Soccer, where you control robots on a football field with radio controlled devices, and try to kick the ball into the goal. The game comes with two robots (England and Brazil) but you can have several players on each side.

This version I’ve just found features penguins, kicking a football around the pitch. What a quality concept.

Penguins and football, the ultimate mix.

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The two teenagers who invented the radio controlled reconnaissance plane won first prize on Thursday night at the International Science Fair.

The students were awarded trophies, medals and a prize of $1,500 each for their invention, which allows the user to perform unmanned reconnaissance via a radio controlled plane. The US Air Force provided them with the prize.

The plane is made from Styrofoam and is just three feet long, housing two digital cameras. One of the camera takes photographs while the other is linked up to a set of video goggles, that allow the user to control the plane, and see through the camera, from the ground, as though they were looking out of the cockpit window.

Alex Wold, one of the inventors, stated:

What makes our plane unique is that it’s so inexpensive anyone can do surveillance from the air.

His colleague Jerry Farke said the plane went down very well at the event.

We had at least 30 judges look through the goggles. Some people even wanted us to patent it.

The future looks bright for these two RC enthusiasts.

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If you’re a real lazy gardener, the sort of person who thinks gardens are for drinking in and letting your dog use as a toilet. The sort of person who has ‘a man’ come round a few times a year to perform ‘magic’ on the grass to make it shorter; then you’ll be interested in this radio controlled lawn mower.

No more back breaking work sitting their watching the weeds grow, now you can actually do something about it without standing up.

To be honest, it still looks like a lot of effort. I mean, having to start the thing to begin with looks like hard work. Maybe you could just have someone lay some concrete?

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A couple of kids have created a project that they displayed at Atlanta’s ‘Intel International Science and Engineering Fair’ named Radio Controlled Reconnaissance: A Bird’s Eye View.

Alexander Wold and Jerald Farke explain the concept of their RC flying reconnaissance invention. I doubt it’ll be too long before these guys end up working for the military or NASA.

Their plane comes with a carbon fibre rudder, they’ve matted out the camera ports so that they can reduce the glare and they’ve worked on the cooling system of the electronics.

Not bad for some kids!

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In the world of photography there are a great many different techniques for getting the right photos, the right effects and best setups. Using radio controlled toys to assist isn’t something many photographers would have considered, however Alan Ramsdell from Sandford, Maine, USA, has been using radio controlled helicopters for photography for many years.

Alan works as an electrician by trade, but uses RC helicopters to fuel his love for photography by taking aerial photos of buildings and houses. It’s become more than a hobby though as Alan has launched a new business around the concept called Maine Aerial Photography Services. Photos of your home from the sky are quite novel, and having one taken by a radio controlled helicopter would be something of a talking point.

Alan has spent thousands of US dollars in rigging a camera to a radio controlled helicopter in order to get the right blend of balance, safety and control. The camera is very expensive, so he doesn’t want a nasty accident to cost him is new found business!

It has hit the ground before … not with the camera on it. I have to be careful when it is in the air because I have $2,000 flying up there.

Luckily Alan is very experienced at flying radio controlled planes and helicopters as he’s been a fan since 1977. That’s quite a few hours flight time.

The rig that holds the camera to the model aircraft was designed and built by Alan himself, and it has built in shock absorbers which limit the shaking of the camera. He then controls the camera from the remote, being able to take photos with the press of a button, and using a video screen as a view finder.

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This is conclusive proof that kids shouldn’t be allowed to invent things, nor indeed should they be allowed in public, or to be around sharp objects. Their stupidity could prove dangerous to themselves, and to others.

Three moronic Americans have somehow managed to get press time for their ‘invention’ of sticking two rolls of bog roll onto a radio controlled truck, and are arguing that the invention (I’m going to stop calling it that now) is in some way useful if you happen to run out of toilet roll.

They’ve even had the audacity to turn up at the 13th annual marketplace for kids, where young inventors and entrepreneurs gather to show off their genius.

These idiots must have stuck out like a pube in an ice cream.

Dylan Kleinjan, one of the genius kids behind the concept of ‘bog roll on rc truck’ tried desperately not to sound like a moron:

If you run out of toilet paper it can be a problem but if you have the Toilet Paper Taker you can use the remote control to bring you more.

Surely, if you run out of toilet paper you’re reliant on having the remote control for your radio controlled truck with you at the time in order for it to bring you more? Why not just take toilet roll into the toilet if you think you might run out, rather than your RC truck remote?

And just how is the truck going to open the crapper door, or do you go for a dump with the door open, RC remote in hand, just in case you need to be followed in by your RC truck?

The idiots, that included Seth Kenna and Cody Lutman, had simply stuck two bog roll holders onto the side of a radio controlled truck (what innovators) and had hoped to gain some interest at the fare. Sadly, no one was interested in investing…

That does surprise me. They’re even arguing that the truck, named the ‘Toilet Paper Taker’ has a wide range of applications???

Dylan claims:

It is good for camping too.

Just how is it good for camping? The intellectual kids spent a whole two weeks on this crud before attending the fare and wasting everyone’s time.

The organisers of the event claim that their goal isn’t for the kids to produce viable products, it’s for them to go through the process of inventing and developing an idea. So we’re pandering to idiots now and patronising them? It’s political correctness gone mad.

Roger Johnson, the Agriculture Commissioner for North Dakota said:

It is a good program. It is about fourth- through sixth-graders believing in themselves. I tell the kids three things: learn something, because it is a school day, teach something, because they are here to show off their project, and to have fun.

The Toilet Paper Taker will NOT be on sale at all good model shops in the near future.

Morons.

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An estimated 5,000 people are believed to have showed up for a radio controlled air show at Bury, St Edmunds last weekend for the Rougham Airfield’s Model Aircraft Show. The show was a veritable feast for model aircraft and RC enthusiasts with helicopters, planes and gliders were all on show.

To cap the whole the event off the largest radio controlled helicopter in Europe was at the show. The C17 Globemaster, one of the biggest radio controlled model aircraft in the world flew at the event, and even damaged itself on landing. The aircraft was a staggering 6ft tall and weighs 120 kilos.

The organiser of the show, Pat Marsden, said:

We were very lucky with the weather and the crowds. We’ve been running the model flying show for about eight years and it’s grown every year.

This year, it was excellent. We had model aircraft from all over the country, including the largest radio-controlled helicopter in Europe.

Our youngest pilot was 12 and others were in their 80s – the youngsters pick it up really well and show the rest of us up.

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You’d get some attention if you turned up at your local radio controlled car track with one of these. The sound alone is enough to make people run away in terror and take their RC cars with them.

From the look of the barrel too it could do some serious damage to anyone or anything in its way.

It could also be useful for pulling your car out of the mud should you have difficulty in the car park afterwards. That’s if you came in a car, you might as just hop on the tank and drive home. Who’s going to stop you?

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