Technabob » tank

Trax MkII Concept Watch is Militaristic and Easy to Read

Hazel Chua — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:00:41 +0000

Remember that futuristic concept watch I told you about yesterday, FOUR? It had all the makings of a great watch, except that it was way too complicated for my taste.

Watch designs featured by Tokyoflash are usually extremely complicated, which makes reading the time off of them – which happens to be the main purpose of watches, by the way – more difficult than necessary. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I chanced upon the Trax MkII Concept Watch.

The watch was designed by Peter Fletcher from the UK, and draws on obvious military themes as its inspiration. That’s pretty much apparent as it uses tank-like treads to tell the time. Unlike other watch displays that flash a series of LED lights and leave all the time reading interpretation up to you, the Trax MkII tells it like it is: with good, old-fashioned digits.

As the time changes, the numbered treads move into position. Just read the numbers found between the LED illuminated brackets in the middle to know what time of day it is – in military time, of course.

On the design, Peter explains: “I wanted to come up with a watch design based on driven belts. The first thought that popped into my head when thinking about belts was caterpillar tracks and what caterpillar tracks are usually attached too. So I decided to use tanks as an inspiration for this watch concept.”

Execution of this particular design will require a fairly complex mechanism to be built, but if you’d like to see it produced some day, be sure to cast your vote over on the Tokyoflash design blog.

[via Ubergizmo via Geeky Gadgets]

Drive A Tank Lets You Drive Real Tanks, Crush Real Cars

Hazel Chua — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:00:49 +0000

This year was a particularly tough one for me. I had a lot of things I had to hurdle through, from personal matters to work-related stuff. But now that it’s nearing the end of the year, I’d like to say that 2011 had it’s good times despite all the bad. One thing I learned from everything was how important it was to learn how to let things go in order to move on.

To help cope, you could try yoga, pottery, work on arts and crafts, write about it in a journal, do some kick-boxing, or drive a tank and crush some cars. Yes, you read that right: Drive A Tank lets you drive an armored tank around for a day and even crush some real cars, if you want to. How’s that for anger release?

The basic tank driving package costs $499 (USD), and you have to fork over an additional $499 if you want to crush a car. Or if you’re feeling mighty angry that day, just add $200 more dollars and crush two cars.

You can drive a tank at Drive A Tank in Kasota, Minnesota. They even offer a helicopter taxi service to and from Minneapolis/St. Paul, since that’s the closest major city. This is a pretty expensive way to manage your anger though, so you might just want to try a few yoga classes instead.

But kidding aside, Drive A Tank seems to offer a unique service that you probably won’t find elsewhere.

[via Reddit]

Doggy Tank Costume Sure to Drop Land Mines

Conner Flynn — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 02:00:29 +0000

If you have one of those tiny little yapping dogs and plan to take him or her out Trick or Treating this year, this is the best costume ever. Turn that little beast into a tank. Your tiny pooch will be yapping in front in place of gunfire and dropping some steaming land mines in back.

This cute costume was made by Youtube user darkbluedrew, who apparently won a costume competition. I can see why. You can’t help but laugh seeing that little guy decked out in armor. The gun handle trigger is a nice touch and controls the lights and sound. Now if we can just make an army of them no enemy would stand a chance.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Don’t worry, he gets plenty of treats for his service and I’m sure they don’t keep him in the tank for long.

[via Craftzine]

LANDBEARSHARK Motorized Skateboard with Treads: Another Way to Die?

Range — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:00:41 +0000

Ever since I first saw motorized skateboards, I always thought that there were a really great way to get around. Now that I’m older and saner, I know for a fact that these contraptions can’t be too safe, especially when you don’t have many ways of slowing down. This particular motorized skateboard was created by The Miters from MIT, and it premiered at the World Maker Faire in New York.

Charles Guan is the one who rides this thing (designed, created, and built it as well), and it gets around on a pair of treads, which makes it different than wheeled boards, and lets its passenger ride off-road. The skateboard boasts a custom drivetrain, 500-watt hours of lithium batteries inside of it, and a 1HP motor to tug you around. Top speed is 15 to 20mph, which isn’t bad.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The LANDBEARSHARK tread skateboard still needs a remote control to function for now, but Charles thinks that once this thing is perfected, it will do without.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Make:]

Mechatronic Robot Tank Built by Father-Daughter Team Looks Bad-Ass

Conner Flynn — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:00:08 +0000

This amazingly deadly robot was built by Robert Beatty and his daughters. Note to all of his daughter’s future suitors… Run! This thing is called Mechatron. It sports mecanum wheels and has a deadly electric gun mounted on top. It can move forward, backward, sideways, and diagonally. And it can do so while firing metal or plastic pellets at the same time.

Mechatron is a very useful forty-five pound robot that manages to be super agile. The colored LED light show beneath corresponds to which direction it is moving in and it also changes as it shoots, which makes for a pretty show.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

An Arduino Mega, Arduino Nano, 12 Maxbotix sonar sensors, 4 motors, Xbee radio, custom gun turret, Hitec Digital servos, MP3 Sound Board, lots of LEDs and more were used to create it. And metal armor plates of course. Another cool aspect of this bot is the old-school robot voice that it uses. This is one awesome creation. Robert and his daughters make quite a robotic team.

[via Arduino Forums via Robot Living]

Digger D-3 Robo Tank Exterminates Landmines

Range — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:43:24 +0000

While this isn’t something new, since the British developed these types of tanks in WWII, the robotic Digger D-3 is a modern-day take on the mine-sweeping tank. The D-3 is remote-controlled and will crawl around a minefield digging up up landmines thanks to its flail hammers.

The flail is composed of tungsten hammers that pound 10″ into the ground. For harder soils, there’s also a mechanical tiller which can plow through and rip out the mines as well. If the mines explode, the tank is supposed to be easily repairable. All the while, it’s operated remotely, with the operator a safe distance away from the exploding mines.

This tank was created by a Swiss non-profit organization, to help dig out the mines in minefields without risking the lives of servicemen and women. It’s been in Senegal, Sudan, Chad, and other places where minefields are commonplace.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The video shows the older Digger D-2 in action, but you get the idea on how it works. It can clear about 10,000 square feet per hour, which is pretty cool.

[via PopSci via DVice]

Army Tank PC Casemod Has Working (Mini) Turret, Treads, Still Runs Windows XP

Technabob — Fri, 13 May 2011 02:15:50 +0000

How’d you like a computer that not only looks like an M1A2 Abrams tank, but that actually can drive and fire ammo? Well, if you’re modder Skip Station, you already have one on your desktop.

Skip’s army tank PC is a beast, measuring 32″ (l) x 12″ (w) x 11″ (h), and it’s doing a perfect job camouflaging as a tank. By heavily modding a jumbo R/C tank model, he was able to cram the guts of a fully-functional PC under the hood.

He had to cut a hole in the side for the motherboard’s ports to stick out, but otherwise, you wouldn’t know this tank was a computer from the outside (until you open the DVD drawer).

Unlike most casemods that transform one thing into another, Skip preserved the driving and pellet-firing capabilities of this R/C vehicle, allowing him to unplug it from the wall and drive it around, shooting projectiles from its movable turret.

I think the green cold-cathode underbelly lighting is a nice touch too. Sure, a Panzer tank doesn’t have the sleek industrial design, of say, an iMac or MacMini, the idea of a tank computer is so much cooler in my opinion. The only thing better would be if the computer could keep running while its driving around, and then beamed its screen back to the remote control.

Check out more pics and details on the build over on Skip Station’s website.

[via Case Mod Blog]

Azimuth SP-1 Landship Watch Looks Like a Tank

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 07 May 2011 12:00:25 +0000

I like wristwatches, even if I don’t wear them. I like to look at the cool designs and I, especially like the watches that have the intricate little gears and parts to the movement inside. I can only imagine how complex designing one of those watches would be. A cool new watch has launched from Azimuth called the SP-1 Landship.

Apparently, a Landship is what tanks were called back in World War I times. This watch is made from titanium, and the hours are displayed on the small dome on top of the watch. The numbers rotate by and are easy to view and read. The minutes rotate by on the large front window that looks like a windshield.

Both of those dials are covered with a sapphire crystal. The Landship is thought to use a windup Swiss ETA automatic movement. The watch is also water resistant to 30-meters and will sell for 6,800 Swiss francs (appx. $7737 USD) and just 100 will be made.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via ablogtoread]

LEGO Tonka Heavy Assault Truck Ready to Crush Your Minifig Army

Range — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 13:39:55 +0000

This incredible LEGO build was dubbed the Tonka Heavy Assault Truck by its creator Karf Oohlu. It sports a massive array of guns and looks quite huge. Apparently, it can shoot a lot of volleys, thanks to all of its weapons.

It’s so substantial, that it actually looks big enough to store other LEGO vehicles inside of it. This LEGO beast was so heavy that it partially collapsed while Karf was taking some photos of it. Thankfully, he was able to restore it and share these pics. For some reason it reminds me of the tanks in Warhammer 40K.

There are more photos of this heavy assault truck available over at Karf’s Flickr set. That’s not all, Karf has got a bunch of other LEGO creations and art in his Flickr stream.

[via The Brothers Brick]

Motorized LEGO Tank Shoots Bricks at Your Enemies

Range — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:04:50 +0000

This motorized LEGO tank was created by Martijn Hellemans (aka “Dino_Martino”). He hasn’t posted any videos of the thing yet, but this bad-ass build is supposed to be able to fire LEGO bricks at all of your enemies, and even includes laser targeting!

That sounds pretty sophisticated. The gun is supposed to shoot high velocity LEGO bricks. I wonder how devastating it will be. Some of these LEGO guns can get very complicated. Martijn used LEGO Technic motors in addition to a MTRMX-Nx multiplexer to build this beast, and it’s controlled via a custom PSP-Nx remote.

The whole thing drives on treads, and even has a rotating gun turret. All in all, I hope that we see vids of this thing pretty soon.

[via Make:]

DeskPets RC Tank Controlled by iPhone

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:47:56 +0000

I think one of the coolest gadgets that has ever launched to go along with the iPhone is the AR.Drone flying machine. That thing is really cool, but so expensive that I will never buy one. If you like the idea of controlling a RC vehicle with your iPhone or iPad, DeskPets has a cool toy for you.

DeskPets is the company behind those cool Skitterbots I talked about before. The new iPhone-controlled toy is a tank called the TankBot. You can steer the bot by tilting your iPhone. TankBot also has sensors that allow him to navigate obstacles on his own and it can respond to hand movements too.

Selling for about $20 (USD), this toy isn’t crazy expensive like the AR.Drone either. DeskPets will show the new toy off for the first time at the New York Toy Fair in February. It will come in black, blue, green, and orange colors and in multiple frequencies to allow several to play at once. The TankBot lands this Summer in stores around the country.

British Military Wants Invisible Tanks by 2013

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 14:30:24 +0000

Researchers at BAE systems are hard at work on a system that uses E-ink and a hoard of sensors to render tanks almost invisible to the naked eye. The system is dubbed e-camouflage and would project the landscape around the tank onto the surface of the tank to make it very hard to see. This exactly like what the Predator used and all we need is that big, bald dude that was always shaving from the flick to foil the Brits should they ever invade. “I seeee yooouuu.”

The Brits are working on the system with seven vehicles at this point – with some of the vehicles being unmanned, some of them manned, and some being armed. One of the vehicles in the program is said to be like the Batmobile. I assume they mean the Tumbler from the recent flicks, not that dorky one from the Keaton days.

Ultimately, the Brits want a vehicle using the system that weighs no more than 30 tons, uses a hybrid drive system, and has the survivability and effectiveness of a current main battle tank. This sounds really cool to me. Something similar surfaced back in June of 2010 from a different company.

[via The Telgraph]

Dfrobotshop Rover: Programmable Tank Robot on a Budget

Technabob — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:35:01 +0000

If you’ve always wanted to build your own programmable robot, price or technical complexity might have gotten in your way. But this new robot from RobotShop brings the cost down to a pricepoint that mere mortals can afford, and is easy to assemble and get started with.

Priced at just $89.99 (USD), the DFRobotShop Rover is an Arduino-compatible (ATMEga 328-based) robot that runs on treads like a tank. The compact kit gives your everything your need to get started, including the assembled circuit board, robot frame hardware, and a Tamiya motor gear box and tread and wheel set. The robot is powerful enough to carry a payload of 2kg (appx. 4.4 pounds) without any problem.

All you need is to grab the Arduino programming software, hook up a MiniB USB cable, and some AA batteries, and you’ll be able to build your own robot tank army on a budget. Maybe the government should buy some of these to do menial tasks.

You can get your hands on the DFRobotShop Rover kit as well as a variety of accessories over at RobotShop now.

[via GoRobotics]

The 1-Minute LEGO Bridge Maker

Range — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:16:59 +0000

This amazing LEGO vehicle by Peer Kreuger, called the Stilzkin EXT3 Bridge Launcher, is able to deploy its own bridges to cross small chasms.

The bridge itself has no servos and takes about a minute to be deployed. Once it’s in place, the vehicle can step aside to let other vehicles cross, cross the bridge itself and then retract the bridge. You have to check it out in action in the following video:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Needless to say that LEGO Technic parts were needed to build this little marvel. No word on when they’ll start building real bridges this way.

[via Brothers Brick]

Remote-Controlled Steam Tank: It’s Aliiiiive!

Lambert Varias — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:39:42 +0000

Artist/Steampunk da Vinci I-Wei Huang aka Crab Fu made this awesome remote-controlled steam tank. It uses alcohol or solid fuel tablets and can last for up to 15 minutes on a full tank of water. It’s a frankentank made of a Wilesco D49 Marine Double Piston Steam engine, a Mamod SE3 boiler, a Tamiya 1/16 clutch drive, an aluminum chassis, and steel tracks. It’s controlled using a 2-channel Futaba.

Once again, this building and hacking stuff is beyond my understanding, but even so I love how it looks. A little polish, grit and flourish and this thing could be made to look like a 19th century toy.

The steam tank doesn’t have weapons, but it is literally on fire. So maybe it could just stand beside its enemy until the latter melts. Or gets bummed out.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Want more steamy steampunk? Check our Crab Fu’s website for more steam-powered creations and steampunk sketches.

[via gizmo watch]

Shocking Tanks Let You Feel the Agony of Defeat

Lambert Varias — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 13:39:50 +0000

Do you want to teach your kids to become competitive? Then get a set of these radio-controlled shocking tanks, and in no time at all they will appreciate the value of winning. Instead of bullets or shells, the tanks fire infrared beams; whenever a tank is “hit” by the other tank, the person controlling it will receive a mild shock via the controller.

Here’s a nice video of a loving family repeatedly shocking their elder:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can order the shocking tanks at Amazon for $50 (USD). The shocking comes at a price though: you’ll need a total of 12 batteries – 6 AAA and 6 AA – to operate the tanks, so you better have a bunch of rechargeable batteries ready if you want the fun to last. And here’s another tip: switch the controllers so your opponent would get shocked whenever they hit your tank. That’ll teach ‘em!

[via Funniest Gadgets]

1/4 Scale Rc Tank: is This Still a Toy?

Lambert Varias — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:45:21 +0000

I had my fair share of toy weapons as a kid: laser rifles that spark and pop when you pull the trigger, swords of all shapes and sizes, a slingshot. Apparently kids these days have much higher standards. Mark – 1 Tanks recently unleashed a 1/4 scale of the Germans’ WW II beast, the King Tiger Tank. This…man-toy is 6′ long, 8′ if you count the gun, and 38″ wide. It’s powered by 2 500W 24 V motors and it weighs all of 551 lbs. (250 kg). The PS3 is still heavier but hey. We’re talking about a remote-controlled tank. I mean look at it!

Apparently kids these days also look like grown men. But seriously: look at that thing. I almost wept when I realized that the guy was behind the tank, and not on the tank. Where else will you see an RC vehicle that can literally trample a child?

I’m pretty sure that the tank’s gun isn’t functional, but still. Still. Imagine your kid showing up at their school Christmas party on this. He’ll immediately be everyone’s best friend. Or at least every bully’s best friend.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Of course something this cool and obscenely large also has a humongous price: the King Tiger is worth £6,600 ($9, 713). If that’s too much for you, Mark-1 is also selling a 1/6 scale King Tiger, base price £2900 ($4,267). If that’s still too much for you then you’re a bad parent. Because giant tanks are the key to stronger parent-child relationships.

[Mark-1 via Tech Digest]

R/C Tank Delivers Beer and Bullets

Technabob — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:03:31 +0000

This radio-controlled tank proves that armored military vehicles don’t always carry a deadly payload. In fact, this one delivers a cold, frosty one instead.

The beverage bearing R/C tank doesn’t really care if you drink Bud Light or Bawls, but it will make sure your thirst is quenched, thanks to its 4 built-in can holders.

Not only can it deliver delicious drinks, the little tank can fire 6mm BB bullets at targets up to 90 feet away. That’s right, don’t mess with my Brewskis! Thankfully, there’s a flashing warning light that lets you know to get the heck out of the way. Of course, these Engrish warnings from the manual don’t make me feel too warm and fuzzy about the safety of this thing.

Did I happen to mention that it’s amphibious? Yep, the tank can travel on land or in the water, thanks to a retractable 4-wheel drive mechanism.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

When you get near a body of H2O, just flip a switch on the remote and the wheels retract as the tank converts to boat mode (although they do get in the way of the drink holders when stowed).

So what’s not to like? You can find the beer-toting, gun-packing, land-driving, water-floating R/C tank here for £44.99 (appx. $92 USD).

[via CoolBuzz via Tech Digest]

Annoying Neighbors? Take ‘Em Out With This Paintball Tank

Technabob — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:19:27 +0000

(Sub)urban warfare has a new face, and it goes by the name of Paintball Panzer. The pint-sized tank has a turret-mounted paintball gun which lets you fire rounds of paint ammo while keeping you safe and sound from the tomatoes and eggs which may be thrown at you in return.

The Funtrak Mini Paintball Tank is a scaled down version of a real tank, featuring a motorized drive system, and a tread drive that lets you maneuver through the roughest backyard obstacles. It’s got a built-in roll cage and engine firewall, and is actually certified for use on the road — in the UK, that is — I have a funny feeling that they wouldn’t let one of these on the street here in the States.

Just like the real world, phony weapons comes at a hefty price. The Paintball Panzer will set you back £8,000 (about $14,400 USD). Each tank is custom built, so you might have to wait up to three months to get yours.

[BornRich via Crave]