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Television Media Toys

Monster Garage's Robotic R/C Car Challenge 98

Posted by CowboyNeal from the racing-from-the-sidelines dept.
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."
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Monster Garage's Robotic R/C Car Challenge More

Monster Garage's Robotic R/C Car Challenge

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  • So I don't need to buy cars from... (Score:3, Funny)

    by seems so green ( 717796 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:05AM (#7587252) Homepage Journal
    ... all the amazing rc car deals I keep getting in my email?!?

  • It's been done before (Score:4, Informative)

    by Phosphor3k ( 542747 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:06AM (#7587263)
    http://slashdot.org/articles/03/03/30/0510225.shtm l?tid=133&tid=159

    Though the linked video file is no longer there.

  • It's been done before! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WavyGravy-R5 ( 665896 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:08AM (#7587268) Homepage Journal
    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 [mrgravy.com] (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.

  • so whats robotic ? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:08AM (#7587271)

    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"

    • Re:so whats robotic ? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      its like those TV shows battlebots/robotwars that are simply glorified radio control cars, can a radio controlled device really be called a robot ?

      I've always thought they could improve that show by including both unlimited and autonomous divisions. Admittedly, a well armed autonomous robot is dangerous, but surely there's some way to manage it with a combination of kiss switches and willingness to let it go until it runs out of whatever powers it if necessary.

    • I used to agree completely.
      My (perhaps eternally) unbuild Battlebot was going to incorporate a lot more onboard intelligence than is normally seen. If nothing else, it would hopefully cut down on "driver error" losses (of which I saw many), but I was still going to refuse to call it a robot on general principles.

      However, writing this post led me to try to find an authoritative definition for the term 'robot'. The following is typical:

      "A robot is a machine designed to execute one or more tasks repeatedly,

    • While not autonomous, it is still a subset of robotics.

  • Sorry (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Pingular ( 670773 )
    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?
    • Suicide Bombers. No, wait, then they wouldn't be suicide bombers. And that's not funny anyway.

      Or, on a more constructive note, full sized radio controlled cars would be good for, say, a (ahem) demolition derby. Or the military, like ground based drones. (If they don't already have them.)

      But other than that, I don't see a point, and naturally some danger, with these things, I would not want to see one driving down my street. I don't think I'd even want to drive one, even with cameras you don't have th

  • Jessie's involvement in the show (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fubar411 ( 562908 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:10AM (#7587278)
    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.

    • Re:Jessie's involvement in the show (Score:4, Interesting)

      by UberOogie ( 464002 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:22AM (#7587339)
      I used to really like this show, but not only does Jessie seem less and less interested, he's become more and more of an ass.

      I understand that it is part of his whole "bad boy" persona, but he's just been a complete dick lately. Whenever anyone stands up to him, I find myself rooting for them, even though they get labelled the "bad" guy.

      My Monday night viewing is narrowing down to Monster House and American Chopper.

      • Re:Jessie's involvement in the show (Score:5, Insightful)

        by e40 ( 448424 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:43AM (#7587453) Journal
        My $0.02:

        1. He was always an ass, but you just liked it before.

        2. The producers are running out of ideas, and it's getting to Jessie. During the PT Crusier show he kept harping of the fact that the idea (from the producers) sucked.

        3. They're starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for show talent. On shows where there is good talent with good personalities, Jessie isn't an ass.

        All of these make Jessie more of an ass.
        • I agree that the producers might have a lot to do with it, but frankly, a lot of it is just Jesse.

          Sometimes Jesse tries to be big man and talk about how this is his "job" when people aren't being as serious as he'd like. Well, if he's going to take that attitude, he should be more professional all the time instead of being a total tool when he's cranky. The Delorean Hovercraft build is a prime example of him just not being professional at all. If this is his "job," he should be a part of it all the time o

    • oh come on now, getting his hair cut specifically contributes to the welds. obviously. duh.
    • The whole show went down the drain. At the beginning it seemed quite exciting and sincere. Now it's full of overhyped bs narration, most parts are donated, each vehicle is built for commercial purposes ["let's advertise terminator 3", "let's sell this"], etc. Jesse seems like a decent guy, he knows that the show got stupid, and he doesn't have much say in what goes in it.

    • Re:Jessie's involvement in the show (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ldspartan ( 14035 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:47AM (#7587461) Homepage
      I agree with a lot of the other posters in this thread. I think the producers of the show have a great, yet horribly executed concept. Jesse James? Building random shit? Sounds good.

      Stupid announcer voices, graphical effects, and corporate sponsorship? Terrible.

      Its amazing that Discovery got it so right with American Chopper, and so so wrong with Monster Garage. The ingredients are the same, there's just a distinct lack of trumped-up bullshit in American Chopper.

      It seems like every third episode of Monster Garage Jesse is saying something that translates to "The Producers of this show are morons," and I think he's right. Remember the skate-board-ramp-RV episode? The producer gets into a whining match with one of the skater/builders that pretty clearly illustrates what a waste the producer is. And remember, he has artistic control... if he left that in, imagine what he's edited out. The crew from the two hearse shows (a dysfunctional group of people if I ever saw one) said similiar things about the producers, and most of them were hollywood types that should be used to that kind of nonsense.

      Monster Garage has a lot of great aspects to it, but the "artistic input" of the producer and who ever else has their hands in the pie sure destroys it.

      --
      lds
      • It's quite old, but The Wheelie episode was pretty cool. I remember the boys getting all amped up over pulling wheelies in a converted ambulance, with Jesse pulling wheelies on an old chopper bicycle early in the piece. And a bunch of prefessional mechanics unable to get the motor running... Good fun.
      • Yeah the "ramp-RV" episode was where I lost a lot of respect for the show. One of the advertisers logos got paited over because one of the build team was a competitior. And the producers went ape-sh!t over that. Advertising is a double edged sword. They enable a lot of things,b tu they also restrict a lot of what you can do if you want to keep their advertising dollar. It's much like radio and TV censoring having a lot to do with who the advertisers are.
    • He's not a TV personality that can dedicate himself to it full time (like Steve on Monster House, who's cool too). He has his own shop where he runs his own company to produce his own brand of choppers. Imagine working two jobs and being able to choose which one you get to spend more time at, and one's capable of completely going bankrupt if you don't babysit it. He's at that one.
    • I'd be surprised if he signed up for another season.

      It would be too ironic to see his resume on Monster.com.
    • I've noticed the same thing. And with the new rules and the new garage, why are they going way over budget? and what happened to the one "freebie" rule?

      Lately my attention has turned more towards "American Chopper" with drama and all.

  • Been done (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:13AM (#7587295) Journal
    This has been done on both MythBusters [discovery.com] and Junkyard Wars [tacorp.net]. 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=
    • A little overhyped? More like completely overhyped. I mean, most of the time they just drive the "project" around in some staged fake "competition" at the end, that's really cheesy.
    • At least in the Junkyard version, the two teams fought the RC cars Battlebots style

      And on Junkyard Wars they did it in 10 hours as opposed to a week.

      I like Monster Garage, but this is a lame project.
      • And on Junkyard Wars they did it in 10 hours as opposed to a week.

        And with junk (well, duh!) and fewer people instead a pile of cash and lot of freebies. Yeah, they supposedly cut back the freebie to just one item, but I still have to wonder if that's really true.

    • 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 SurvivalShowOfThe

  • Hmm. Am I the only one who thinks this might be a backdoor pilot for a Knight Rider revival?

    "There's nothing worse than a smartass automobile." -
    KITT, Knight Rider 2000
  • one episode t hey turned regular cars into remote controlled cars and did a demolition derby for them.

  • Video clip (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Danta ( 2241 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:18AM (#7587319) Homepage
    A videoclip [stilemedia.com] 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.

  • Monster Garage - More Info (Score:4, Informative)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:28AM (#7587371)

    Shark-jumping [jumptheshark.com]

    How 'Monster Garage' Works [howstuffworks.com]

    Twisted metal mind [canoe.ca]

    Almost-related ramblings of a software developer [marksanborn.com]

  • Doc Brown (Score:2, Informative)

    by BitwizeGHC ( 145393 )
    Reminds me of when Doc Brown put Einstein into the front seat of the DeLorean and drove it around with a radio controller.

  • HowTo convert RC Car to a Robot (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Cryofan ( 194126 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @10:43AM (#7587451) Journal
    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 [mit.edu]
    • RC cars are not robots because they do not make decisions for themselves. The only exceptions to that which I am aware of are speed controllers for electric cars which implement regenerative braking and thus ABS, and which have a temperature sensor and will shut down. The ABS would seem to me to possibly qualify as robotics (it's sensing something and then taking physical action) but the temp sensor not.

      A real example of automotive robotics would be active suspension, a so-far failed technology which woul

  • I won't be satisfied until the R/C car is also capable of travelling through time.

  • Monster Garage is a Joke (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SloWave ( 52801 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @11:38AM (#7587698) Journal

    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.
    • Lost interest in that worthless show when then converted a Mustang into a lawnmower.

      I thought I remembered hearing that the lawnermower episode was the pilot. I was wrong. It's the forth episode [discovery.com]. (Although I believe that car was the first "idea" the producers came up with.)

      I gave up interest in the show when it became crystal clear that the first rule ("When completed, the monster machine must appear to be stock.") was completely and totally ignored. In fact, none of the rules seem to actually appl

      • Yeah, not only do they break the rule of appearing stock, but they almost always give the project a sparkly paint job with flames - I think flames are used too much.

        And since jessie builds motorcycles why don't they use motorcycles as the base for a few projects. The only time I saw a motorcycle in monster garage was during the Terminator 3 truck episode and then the bike(triumph) was only a prop.
  • has already done it. Wouldn't you rather watch the abusive and dysfuntional family that is "American Chopper" anyway?
  • 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. Co
    • That just gave me an idea. Insted of a simulator how about remote controled full size race cars.

      Now that would be cool. I've been much of a racing fan, but I just might watch remotely piloted race cars. No safety restrictions, just raw unchecked competition.

      Imagine screaming machines racing around the track at hundreds of miles per hour with the drivers on the sidelines. If there is a wreck then would be parts flying everywhere through the air and no one would get hurt.

      Then someday a touring test of sort

  • Talk about dangerous ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Saturday November 29, 2003 @12:22PM (#7587878) Homepage
    The RobeteQ site starts out with a big warning --
    Important Warning and Disclaimer Remote controlling or operating semi/fully autonomous full-size gasoline powered automotive vehicle is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Such a vehicle should only be operated on a secure test track and never be used to carry passengers.
    And yes, it's in bold type and all, but it's not nearly strong enough.

    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.)

    • you can buy pieces of kit that senses if the radio signal has been lost or the batteries are low. When they detect this they just shut the piece of kit down (ie close throttle or whatver you set it to do). Remember that you can buy RC cars and trucks that do 80mph+ out the box which won't do anyone's ankles/shins any favours- this has already been thought of!

      • you can buy pieces of kit that senses if the radio signal has been lost or the batteries are low. When they detect this they just shut the piece of kit down (ie close throttle or whatver you set it to do).

        Yes, and if you have PCM equipment this is built in. However, it's not enough. If the battery gets pulled loose, your servos will all freeze right where they were, and your failsafes will never activate. Or if a big bump cracks your receiver PC board, same thing. Or if your car rolls over and crus

        • If the battery gets pulled loose, your servos will all freeze right where they were, and your failsafes will never activate.

          The failsafe commonly used to protect against this (Such as the Schumacher Nitro XTR [racing-cars.com] is a simple spring attached to the servo arm. If power is suddenly lost the servo will just get pulled back to the throttle close position, or whatever. Simple but effective.
    • This is actually not a big deal. Battlebots has had requirements for fail-safes on their radio equipment from the beginning. Most PCM based R/C equipment comes standard with it. There is also high-end R/C stuff (like the IFI controllers) which use frequency hopping which makes them jam resistant and have very robust fail-safes.
      • Battlebots has had requirements for fail-safes on their radio equipment from the beginning.
        No, not from the beginning -- it used to be just a suggestion. But now it is a requirement. The Battlebot rules have gotten much better since they first started out.

        Still, a full sized car is much much more dangerous than any battlebot allowed by the BattleBot rules, and requires much more care. Merely relying on your PCM radio to protect you from disaster *is not enough*.

  • 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! [freeserve.com]

    Great fun to watch when someone's put in a fair amount of effort...

  • Fun show, but... (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Whammy666 ( 589169 )
    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 tos
  • ...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.
  • 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. [redteamracing.org]

    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
  • 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.

    • I saw this episode of Junkyard Wars it was very cool, they made these big monstrous "Mad Max" type cars with steal spikes bristling all over and stuff, definitely one of my favorite episodes.

      I was gonna post about this very point, that it was already done on JY Wars and done in 10 hours, using mostly "junk" albeit finely picked over and amassed "uber junk" but junk nonetheless.

  • Balloon Chase Vehicle (Score:4, Insightful)

    by n6mod ( 17734 ) on Saturday November 29, 2003 @02:39PM (#7588558) Homepage
    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
  • http://entermyworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=153 [entermyworld.com]

    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
  • 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 /. f

  • Hmm.... (Score:2)

    by El ( 94934 )
    What do the cops do when they pull one of these over for speeding?
  • They did something similar on Discovery's sister network, TLC some time ago....but with two such cars....for a remote controlled jousting.

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