Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com and sitting across from me, as he always does,
Speaker 1: senior writer Jonathan Strickland. In my younger and more vulnerable years,
Speaker 1: my father gave me some advice that I've been turning
Speaker 1: over in my mind ever since. With a shovel. Uh
Speaker 1: possibly if you know the source of quote, let us know.
Speaker 1: And if you don't go to a library people. All right, So, um,
Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about something that that several
Speaker 1: listeners have requested over the past well probably two years
Speaker 1: or so, but we've had a lot of people ask
Speaker 1: about radio controlled toys. I think RC helicopters is the
Speaker 1: one that we tend to get the most requests for,
Speaker 1: but we've also had for r C cars and and
Speaker 1: and just radio controlled vehicles in general, and they all
Speaker 1: work at least on the radio side, with the same
Speaker 1: basic premise. So we're going to cover that and then
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get into some specifics. Yes, and oddly enough,
Speaker 1: I have a little history, and boy do I mean history,
Speaker 1: because this goes back to eight and one of our
Speaker 1: old friends who messed around with radio in its very
Speaker 1: very early days, and who had believe it or not. Actually,
Speaker 1: you probably believe it if you know who. We're talking
Speaker 1: about a patent for it. So there was an electrical
Speaker 1: exhibition in Madison Square Garden and a guy named Nicola
Speaker 1: Tesla faced off against Marconi in a no whole bar,
Speaker 1: two out of three falls match. So not not this time.
Speaker 1: Madison Square Gardens has a special place in my heart
Speaker 1: as a wrestling fan. That's go ahead. Uh no, actually, uh,
Speaker 1: this was a let me see hold on. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure I was right. It was
Speaker 1: a radio controlled boat, basically a steel boat about four
Speaker 1: ft long or so. And um, he brought out this
Speaker 1: radio controlled boat and people thought he was controlling it
Speaker 1: with his mind powers because you know, radio was still
Speaker 1: pretty new at that point. Remember, if a technology is
Speaker 1: sophisticate enough, it would be indistinguishable from magic. Yes, however,
Speaker 1: Tesla had his boat powered by several batteries on board. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: there were like eight guys underneath the water, just pushing
Speaker 1: it along holding their breath. Uh, this is Tesla we're
Speaker 1: talking about. You know, he had access to future technology.
Speaker 1: Eight robots underwater holding their breath. That's more like it. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it wasn't in a way, it
Speaker 1: was not terribly different from from our current r C technology.
Speaker 1: And there did there so there were switches that were propelling, propowering,
Speaker 1: powering the propeller, the rudder, and uh running lights. Oh
Speaker 1: so he could even make the lights go on and off. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he even had a coherer, which is a switch
Speaker 1: that act that was activated by radio. Um. And uh
Speaker 1: had it had it set up so that he could
Speaker 1: power or or control it by radio. And uh people
Speaker 1: were freaked out by it because again it was magic
Speaker 1: like to a lot of the people. Yes, he has
Speaker 1: a U S Patent number six one eight zero nine
Speaker 1: for a wireless remote control nine. Yeah. Now, A a
Speaker 1: reporter from the New York Times was covering this and
Speaker 1: he said, hey, you know what, you could make this uh,
Speaker 1: this boat go under water and carry explosives and uh,
Speaker 1: Tesla basically said no, no, no, no, no no no,
Speaker 1: this is not a torpedo. It's a robot. They to
Speaker 1: help humanity not destroy it. Yeah, thanks for the Mitchell
Speaker 1: and Web fans in the audience. Yeah, but yeah, basically
Speaker 1: they suggested you, oh, you could use this for a torpedo.
Speaker 1: They said, no, no, this this could be used to
Speaker 1: help people, not destroy people. Um. And then it turns
Speaker 1: out the military really wasn't interested in it. They were
Speaker 1: it was too it was too much of a novelty
Speaker 1: at the time for it to be of course, you
Speaker 1: know now you know, we've got unmanned aerial vehicles and
Speaker 1: all sorts of other remote controlled technology less. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: at the time, back in the late late nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: they weren't interested. Yeah, technology ahead of its time, really
Speaker 1: really Tesla and technology ahead of its time Tesla. If
Speaker 1: Tesla had, if if he had been able to hold
Speaker 1: onto his patents and his sanity, um, I think I
Speaker 1: think the world would be would look a little different today. Yeah. Probably.
Speaker 1: We'd also probably be in fear for our lives whenever
Speaker 1: we stepped outside about being zapped by some sort of
Speaker 1: mac huge electronic rays. Anyhow, we're broadcasting power over to
Speaker 1: New York, stay inside. Well no, no pun intended, I'll
Speaker 1: fact you some electricity. Um. And that was a Delbert reference. Um, so,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's sort of if you uh, we'll pardon
Speaker 1: the pun, it's sort of submerged for a while. For
Speaker 1: for a few decades, it really didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of remote controlled stuff. Um, there were people who were
Speaker 1: into the technology, I would I would say hobbyists probably
Speaker 1: more than anything else, who are into different kinds of
Speaker 1: radio controlled technology, But it really didn't come back again
Speaker 1: as something that people were interested in until I would say,
Speaker 1: at least, according to my research, around the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: was when you started seeing people with remote controlled cars
Speaker 1: and planes and and gidsmos for toys. Yeah. Yeah, The
Speaker 1: basics behind us are are fairly simple. Uh. The you
Speaker 1: hold a controller and that controller has inside it a
Speaker 1: transmitter and uh we actually talked quite a bit about
Speaker 1: transmitters when we did our podcast about how radio works.
Speaker 1: But in case you don't remember, the basics behind a
Speaker 1: transmitter are well, it's all based on on things like
Speaker 1: magnetic fluctuations and the way that the the relationship between
Speaker 1: magnetism and electricity. That's about two thirds of our podcast. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds might sound really familiar to those of you
Speaker 1: who have been listening to tech stuff for a while.
Speaker 1: But uh, here's a very basic transmitter. You let's say
Speaker 1: you've got a battery, and you've got two different lengths
Speaker 1: of wire, okay, and one length of wire you connect
Speaker 1: to either end of a some sort of voltage sensor.
Speaker 1: So you've got a meter there that's going to register
Speaker 1: whenever voltage passes through the wire. But it's not connected
Speaker 1: to anything else, not connected to a power source. And
Speaker 1: then you've got a battery and another length of wire,
Speaker 1: and you connect the length of wire to the two
Speaker 1: ends of the battery. Now, the moment that current begins
Speaker 1: to flow through that wire, that change in voltage creates
Speaker 1: a magnetic field. That magnetic field will induce electricity to
Speaker 1: flow through the second length of wire, the one that's
Speaker 1: not connected to a power source. It's only connected to
Speaker 1: the voltmeter, and the voltmeter will register that there's a change.
Speaker 1: Now it only will have electricity flow as the magnetic
Speaker 1: field changes. Yeah, so you can't have a magnetic you
Speaker 1: can't create a magnetic field, and it just perpetually creates
Speaker 1: this flow of electricity. It's only whenever the magnetic magnetic
Speaker 1: field itself changes. So by connecting and disconnecting the wire
Speaker 1: from that battery, you are going to change the magnetic field,
Speaker 1: which will and then induce electricity to flow through that
Speaker 1: second wire. That's the idea of transmission there. It's the
Speaker 1: idea of transmitting radio waves is essentially doing the same
Speaker 1: thing you're really You're You've created a power source and
Speaker 1: a circuit, and by making the the opening and closing
Speaker 1: the circuit and a regular but rapid way, you can
Speaker 1: create this um this change in magnetic fields. And then
Speaker 1: if by putting it through an antenna, you can direct
Speaker 1: it and and even uh amplify it in such a
Speaker 1: way that you can detect it from a distance. And
Speaker 1: then depending on how you do this and depending on
Speaker 1: how you've UH programmed the receiver on the other end,
Speaker 1: that's where you get the response. So, for example, if
Speaker 1: I were to do this with you know, by recording
Speaker 1: music and then encoding that so that it converts the
Speaker 1: sound into electricity, the electricity then is essentially converted into
Speaker 1: uh this this changing magnetic field. A receiver would have
Speaker 1: would receive this changing magnetic field, convert that into electricity,
Speaker 1: and then have another encoding device that would convert the
Speaker 1: electricity back into sound. That's a very high level way
Speaker 1: of looking at it. Well, we're not just limited with sound.
Speaker 1: We can transmit in from other kinds of information this way,
Speaker 1: including directions essentially to a device. So in this case,
Speaker 1: we're talking about a controller that let's let's take a
Speaker 1: very basic controller. Let's say you've got a controller that
Speaker 1: has a trigger and a wheel, and the trigger is
Speaker 1: essentially your your your throttle, your accelerator. So if you
Speaker 1: pull the trigger, it's sending a series of pulses. It's
Speaker 1: it's a very specific series of pulses through a very
Speaker 1: specific frequency. And if your receiver is within range of
Speaker 1: the whatever your transmitter's power is, uh, the receiver receives this,
Speaker 1: this series of pulses and then interprets that as that's
Speaker 1: the accelerator button. Hit the gas. Although it's not necessarily gas.
Speaker 1: There are r C cars and other vehicles out there
Speaker 1: that use gas, but not all of them do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: many of them will use electricity, but there are others
Speaker 1: that will rely on some form of fuel besides elect uh,
Speaker 1: you know, an electrical current. So that's a but. But
Speaker 1: the the series of pulses from that accelerat ratar is
Speaker 1: going to be different from the series of pulses. Then
Speaker 1: if you were to twist the wheel uh to the right,
Speaker 1: which would tell the vehicle, let's say it's an r
Speaker 1: C car to turn right, that series of pulses is
Speaker 1: going to be a different series. So that way, when
Speaker 1: the r C car receives that message, it can interpret
Speaker 1: that as saying, oh, this means turned the wheels to
Speaker 1: the right, as opposed to hit the gas. Yeah. Now, UM.
Speaker 1: It's also important to note one of the things from
Speaker 1: our radio podcast that radio has can take in a
Speaker 1: number of different forms. I mean, we use there's a
Speaker 1: broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation UM, of which radio is apart,
Speaker 1: and the radio frequencies. It all depends on UM a
Speaker 1: number of factors amplitude, wavelength and frequency UM. But just
Speaker 1: you know, so it sort of depends on the shape
Speaker 1: of the radio wave basically if you want to get
Speaker 1: right down to it, and how many there are UM
Speaker 1: but over a certain period of time. But the there
Speaker 1: are a couple of frequencies that are specifically in the
Speaker 1: United States devoted to consumer electronic consumer electronics and UH.
Speaker 1: This is this is something that's regulated by the Federal
Speaker 1: Communications Commission in the United States. The c UH and
Speaker 1: it's the reason you might wonder why there needs to
Speaker 1: be such an entity. Uh, the reason for it is
Speaker 1: that if you had all of your different electronics and
Speaker 1: it was unregulated, there's a lot of potential for interference.
Speaker 1: Because if you've ever had a let's you've had a
Speaker 1: remote control car before, right, Yeah, If you have a
Speaker 1: remote control car and your buddy has a remote control
Speaker 1: car and they're both running on the same frequency and
Speaker 1: there's no way of differentiating it, then you can't race
Speaker 1: your car against your buddy's car because every time you
Speaker 1: press up on your control both cars start to move
Speaker 1: because they you know, they can't differentiate between two signals
Speaker 1: sent along the same frequency. So imagine that multiplied by
Speaker 1: an astronomical number. If all devices were unregulated. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's all you could have the argument of, well, if
Speaker 1: it's unregulated, what are the odds that the frequency you
Speaker 1: chose it's going to be the same as someone else.
Speaker 1: Those odds are pretty good. Actually, if you look at
Speaker 1: the entire breadth of radio, everything that relies on radio transmissions,
Speaker 1: because it's not just radio, it's television, it's all these
Speaker 1: other sort of devices. Um, So that's why you had
Speaker 1: to have a some sort of of body that would
Speaker 1: regulate this and say, all right, we are dedicating this
Speaker 1: part of the spectrum of the radio frequency spectrum to
Speaker 1: consumer electronics. Yeah we can. Uh, I mean there are
Speaker 1: a number of of real world non RC examples. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the reason why, um, wireless hubs in
Speaker 1: your house have the ability to change channels to ensure
Speaker 1: that you don't interfere with the neighbors and vice versa. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, their their tales of pilots being able to
Speaker 1: hear baby monitors. I don't know if that's the old
Speaker 1: wireless phones. Yea, the wireless phones to uh, they've they've
Speaker 1: changed the frequencies on which they broadcast simply to avoid
Speaker 1: all the radio transmissions in the home. Now that they're
Speaker 1: people have wire wireless networks and things, um, the interfere
Speaker 1: with one another. Yeah. I remember having a wireless phone
Speaker 1: where if you turned it on, sometimes you can hear
Speaker 1: other people's conversations, like like not not conversations that were
Speaker 1: happening in your home. Yes, but you know you turned
Speaker 1: it out, you turned it on, you Yeah, you like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can even make a phone call,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if I want to, because if
Speaker 1: I do, then maybe someone else is hearing what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, that that's the reason for the regulation. And
Speaker 1: I remember to our conversation about the remote controls. They
Speaker 1: used to use sound to change the channel, and I
Speaker 1: used to, uh, I would drop magnets on this toy
Speaker 1: that I used to play with at my grandmother's house.
Speaker 1: She had one of those early TVs with or TVs
Speaker 1: with early remote control, and I could change the channel
Speaker 1: simply by uh the magnetic or actually it was a
Speaker 1: sound thing, so it was the sound of the magnets falling.
Speaker 1: It was an ultrasonic system as opposed to infrared or
Speaker 1: radio waves. Yeah, I had the same thing with a slinky.
Speaker 1: But you happen to have that say that that interference,
Speaker 1: and it was a sound interference, not an electromagnetic interference.
Speaker 1: But it's it's funny when those little things happen. And
Speaker 1: this is uh their courting off so that that people
Speaker 1: can enjoy their radio controlled stuff and uh not interfere
Speaker 1: with other people in and vice versa. Right, And a
Speaker 1: lot of the the RC toy uh toys out there
Speaker 1: are at least the older ones anyway, are dedicated in
Speaker 1: either the twenty seven mega Hurts or the forty nine
Speaker 1: Mega Hurts ranges. Some of them are actually capable of
Speaker 1: doing either, so that you know, if you have a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of friends together and you all want to
Speaker 1: race your vehicles, you can switch from one frequency to
Speaker 1: the other, so that way, you know, you you avoid
Speaker 1: this interference problem. And also you can get more specific
Speaker 1: within a frequency. So let's say that I'm say twenty
Speaker 1: seven mega hurts is what my my vehicle runs on.
Speaker 1: Like that, that's it doesn't can't accept information from the
Speaker 1: forty nine mega hurts spectrum or frequency range. But I
Speaker 1: could possibly if you this is all up to the manufacturer,
Speaker 1: but you could create a device that could accept different
Speaker 1: channels within the twenty seven mega hurts frequency range, so
Speaker 1: twenty seven point one, twenty seven point two, twenty seven
Speaker 1: point three, so you might have multiple channels that you
Speaker 1: can switch on and that way, um, if you do
Speaker 1: have a bunch of friends and you want to raise
Speaker 1: your vehicles, you can all try different channels to make
Speaker 1: sure that you know your signals aren't uh uh conflicting
Speaker 1: with someone else's UM. And this is you know, that's
Speaker 1: of course really important if you're in a competition, because
Speaker 1: there are plenty of actual events out there where people
Speaker 1: are building our C cars or our c whatever's and
Speaker 1: competing them against each other in various races or obstacle
Speaker 1: courses that kind of thing, um, And some of them
Speaker 1: are kit based, and a lot of them now are
Speaker 1: really you buy. You spend a lot of money from
Speaker 1: a particular manufacturer and buy a racing our vehicle. But
Speaker 1: of course skill comes into play too, So just because
Speaker 1: you have the fastest car doesn't mean you're gonna be
Speaker 1: the best driver automatically, that's true. Yeah, I mean there
Speaker 1: has to be a receiver, of course, on board the
Speaker 1: device that you're controlling. That's that's the second part of this, Right,
Speaker 1: You've got the transmitter in your hand, but the vehicle
Speaker 1: itself has to have a receiver, and of course it will.
Speaker 1: The receiver will be attached to a micro controller of
Speaker 1: some type that operates the servos on board the remote
Speaker 1: controlled thing. Um. So you know, and it gets more
Speaker 1: and more complex. Like for a car, you might have
Speaker 1: ford in reverse and you know the wheels turning left
Speaker 1: and right. That's that's pretty simple, you know, when you
Speaker 1: get into something like a remote controlled airplane. Then you've
Speaker 1: got other servos and other control surfaces. You've got uh,
Speaker 1: the you know, the engine or engines you've which of
Speaker 1: course you're going to have to maintain speed to keep
Speaker 1: the airflow going over the wing and keep the plane moving.
Speaker 1: But you've also got the rudder controls, you've got the
Speaker 1: you know, the control surfaces on the wing to help
Speaker 1: you go up and down, not not necessarily left and right.
Speaker 1: And you've got to operate all of those things. Um.
Speaker 1: For a submarine, you might have the same type of
Speaker 1: thing where you have control surfaces that that move the
Speaker 1: sub up or down, left or right through the water. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the stuff that that you know, servos and motors
Speaker 1: are very important in these devices. Yes. And this is
Speaker 1: stuff that takes electrical energy and converts it into mechanical energy. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we really the fascinating thing to me about an
Speaker 1: r C car is seeing how many different types of
Speaker 1: energy are being used. Yes, you know how many. And
Speaker 1: it's relying on several different things. It's relying on uh,
Speaker 1: it's relying on electricity, on magnetic changes in magnetic um states.
Speaker 1: It's relying on radio frequencies, it's relying on on mechanical energy. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a great lesson in basic physics really when you
Speaker 1: look at it that way. And when I said that,
Speaker 1: you know, the older ones run on twenty seven Mega
Speaker 1: Hurts and four nine Mega Hurts. There are radio controlled
Speaker 1: vehicles now that are in have our work in the
Speaker 1: giga Hurts range because the gig Hurts also opened up
Speaker 1: for some of the gig Hurts range open up for
Speaker 1: consumer devices. So some of the professional I guess what
Speaker 1: you can call it professional, some of the sports enthusiast ones,
Speaker 1: the r C racing ones are in the Giga Hurts range,
Speaker 1: not in the Mega Hurts range. Yeah, of course this
Speaker 1: is This is yet another one of those hobbies that
Speaker 1: you can get into for a fairly reasonable cost if
Speaker 1: you have have some money squirreled away. But you can
Speaker 1: also really get into things, build things yourself, more complex devices,
Speaker 1: more expensive devices. You can move, say from a propeller
Speaker 1: plane to a ducted fan, which is what people use
Speaker 1: to sort of simulate a jet the appearance of a
Speaker 1: jet basically the fans inside the engine, and so it
Speaker 1: appears to be to work on jet. Also, I think
Speaker 1: you can now buy jet engine real jet engines for
Speaker 1: these aircraft, which I imagine need quite a bit of space.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've even seen this sort of technology
Speaker 1: used in actual vehicle vehicles, not model vehicles. Mean the
Speaker 1: MythBusters have done it. Yeah, where where they were trying
Speaker 1: to recreate a stunt that was too dangerous to have
Speaker 1: a human behind the wheel of a vehicle or behind
Speaker 1: the helm of a vehicle, whatever you want to call it. Um,
Speaker 1: And so they would rig up a robot that would
Speaker 1: be remote controlled and they would uh use that to
Speaker 1: manipulate the vehicle. And you know, so, yeah, it's there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different applications to this beyond the
Speaker 1: typical I want, you know, I've got little little remote
Speaker 1: control four by four and I want to drive it
Speaker 1: around the neighborhood. You know. Well, battle bots, you know,
Speaker 1: that was another type of remote controlled vehicle that uh
Speaker 1: required things. Well, I mean that that actually is sort
Speaker 1: of another illustration too, because say you have a bot
Speaker 1: that has crawler treads on it, so you have your
Speaker 1: left tread and your right tread, plus you might have one,
Speaker 1: two or even more weapons on the battle bot. Then
Speaker 1: you have to have um your controller and you you'd
Speaker 1: have a couple of people on some of those crews
Speaker 1: where somebody would drive the bot, so they would be
Speaker 1: in charge of making sure it got where it needed
Speaker 1: to go or got away from the other body if
Speaker 1: their weapons were disabled. And then you had somebody operating
Speaker 1: the weapons. So that required several different frequencies UM and
Speaker 1: the receivers and controllers, the transmitters and controllers to manipulate them,
Speaker 1: and the receivers and controllers on the device itself to
Speaker 1: handle all those different things. They can get quite complex
Speaker 1: UM and again costly, because you know, those machines cost
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. It's it can be uh, it can
Speaker 1: be a lot of fun, and it can be very expensive. Well.
Speaker 1: And I mean I've also seen them in uh it's
Speaker 1: it's not unusual to see it in applications like UM puppetry.
Speaker 1: You know, the the Hinson Company has used remote controlled
Speaker 1: servos for some of their more advanced puppet characters in
Speaker 1: movies like Labyrinth and uh, you know, so that they
Speaker 1: could have more articulation in the character's face, but operating
Speaker 1: under the same principles as the remote control car. UM.
Speaker 1: It's just you have like a remote control goblin face,
Speaker 1: which I think it's pretty awesome, and unfortunately I don't
Speaker 1: know anywhere where you can buy it. It's UM, it's
Speaker 1: really funny that you know that's something that's ubiquitous is
Speaker 1: actually fairly fairly easy to accomplish UM. And of course
Speaker 1: there are many different kinds of hobby stores UM. Some
Speaker 1: may be local to you depending on where you live.
Speaker 1: Others are online and pretty easy to access UM and
Speaker 1: they offer all kinds of different things. One of the
Speaker 1: big toys I saw for this this past holiday season,
Speaker 1: the one we just uh finished up since we're recording
Speaker 1: this we actually we're recording it before this happens, but
Speaker 1: we're publishing in early were the UH air Swimmers line
Speaker 1: of inflatable toys that have remote control. The it makes
Speaker 1: the there's a fish and a shark that can it
Speaker 1: looks like they're swimming through the air, which is kind
Speaker 1: of an actually pretty cool effect to see. But I
Speaker 1: mean they're they're using the same kinds of remote controls
Speaker 1: that we've had for decades more or less, just different
Speaker 1: frequencies maybe on the transmitter and receiver. Yeah, And I've
Speaker 1: been I've been kind of UM searching since Chris is
Speaker 1: wondering why I've been staring at my computer. I've been
Speaker 1: trying to figure you were just on YouTube again now. No,
Speaker 1: but I've been trying to find a specific UM toy
Speaker 1: because I owned one, and I can't remember what it
Speaker 1: was called. But it was essentially a little toy battling robot.
Speaker 1: They I think there was something like six different types
Speaker 1: of this, these battling robots, and they all had different
Speaker 1: colors and um uh. It was a robot that was
Speaker 1: remote controlled and you would you would battle it against
Speaker 1: someone else's robot, and it had things like a little
Speaker 1: infrared transmitter and an infrared receiver, so it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a laser tag type thing where you could shoot
Speaker 1: at another person's robot and also could do physical attacks
Speaker 1: like an actual knock a robot over. Um. I totally
Speaker 1: don't remember this toy it was. It was in a
Speaker 1: way it was a really a brilliant kind of move,
Speaker 1: although I don't know how well it did in the market.
Speaker 1: But it also had a sort of a card game
Speaker 1: element to it. You could purchase packs of cards that
Speaker 1: would give your robot different stats, so in other words,
Speaker 1: your robot would be limited at how fast it could
Speaker 1: go based upon the card that you could scan to
Speaker 1: give it a speed, and the cards were ranked I
Speaker 1: think one through five, So if you had a speed
Speaker 1: of three, you're right there in the middle. If you
Speaker 1: found a speed of five, your robot could actually move
Speaker 1: at a faster pace, and you would also have armor
Speaker 1: as well, so that would let it withstand more hits
Speaker 1: before it registered an actual hit. Uh. It was a
Speaker 1: neat idea, and I got one, and my buddy Oz
Speaker 1: got one, and we maybe had one fight and that
Speaker 1: was it. And my lovely life has endured the fact
Speaker 1: that I have this battle robot in a closet, this
Speaker 1: little bitty thing. It's not like the ones that were
Speaker 1: in the Robot Wars or anything like that. Um but
Speaker 1: and all of its accessories that I went on and bought,
Speaker 1: not to mention, a deck of cards where I was
Speaker 1: trying to get like those those weapons and those abilities
Speaker 1: that would make them better. And some of the cards
Speaker 1: were specific only to particular robot models. So you've got
Speaker 1: cards for robots you didn't know exactly, the idea being
Speaker 1: that you would trade them for someone else's cards, where
Speaker 1: they might have ones that are useful to you but
Speaker 1: not to them. That kind of thing it's brilliant, brilliant marketing.
Speaker 1: But it was all based on this same technology, and
Speaker 1: each robot worked on its own part of the frequency
Speaker 1: band the robots all belonged to, so that way you
Speaker 1: didn't have to worry about your UM your controls interfering
Speaker 1: with theirs. And there are also some r C vehicles
Speaker 1: that are not really radio controlled. There's some that are
Speaker 1: infrared controlled, so it's more like a remote control for
Speaker 1: a typical television set, although some of those are now
Speaker 1: using radio frequencies in the form of WiFi, so that
Speaker 1: you know, you could have the the cable unit or
Speaker 1: uh DVD player or Blu ray player or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you could have it out of view. And because it's
Speaker 1: using radio frequencies which aren't blocked, they don't need a
Speaker 1: line of sight. Yeah. The disadvantage of using the R
Speaker 1: for that, yeah, you can't. That's the thing about it
Speaker 1: and I ARE vehicle or an I R anything, is
Speaker 1: that you have to maintain a line of sight in
Speaker 1: order for it to be UM controllable. Once it gets
Speaker 1: like if you if you were to make something that
Speaker 1: you're directing by I R go around the corner, then
Speaker 1: you'd suddenly lose contact with it and it wouldn't it
Speaker 1: would just stop or go on a killing rampage whatever
Speaker 1: it's default settings. Right. So, but from the RC range,
Speaker 1: you know, you you don't have to necessarily have a
Speaker 1: line of sight. Now there is a only a you know,
Speaker 1: a useful broadcast range that's going to be dependent upon
Speaker 1: the power supply and the kind of antenna you're using. Um.
Speaker 1: If so, if you were to say, fly a remote
Speaker 1: controlled helicopter around and it's sort to get outside of
Speaker 1: that rage, you might quickly have a search and rescue
Speaker 1: operation on your hands. Mm hmm. Yeah, I thought I
Speaker 1: was thinking back to some of the other stuff I
Speaker 1: had that sort of emulated remote control, but not really.
Speaker 1: I had a car UM that had a cam system
Speaker 1: on it, uh, and it came with a series of
Speaker 1: plastic cams. It was actually a replica of a Porsche
Speaker 1: nineventeen race car, and you would stick a cam on
Speaker 1: top and it would do whatever the cam had and
Speaker 1: the cam would rotate and so the car would basically
Speaker 1: you know, would go forward and then reverse and do whatever,
Speaker 1: but it would do that according to the shape of
Speaker 1: the cam. UM. And then of course I had the
Speaker 1: big track which sort of appears to be remote controlled,
Speaker 1: but you're really programming it before you even press go
Speaker 1: and then it does what it does. And um so
Speaker 1: I mean they're there are other ways of doing similar things,
Speaker 1: but it's just not the same like the old remote
Speaker 1: controlled toys that would still have a wire attack them.
Speaker 1: I had one of those two press up or down
Speaker 1: and that would make a go forward or backward. But
Speaker 1: it's all wired. It's not so you're tethered to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The parent a r drone, which is something I saw
Speaker 1: it CS a few years ago. It's been it's been
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, it's been out for a while.
Speaker 1: It's a four rotor copper copter chopper and it's uh
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like a helicopter because it doesn't have
Speaker 1: that one uh blades up at the top. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: got it's got four sets of them and uh it
Speaker 1: looks like a weird hovering drone thing. But you can
Speaker 1: control those through a smartphone device usually. I think it's
Speaker 1: only um iOS. Actually, I don't think they have an
Speaker 1: Android based system yet, but they they actually maybe they do.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at their website and they have a little
Speaker 1: Android icon on it. Yes, a new Android app, so
Speaker 1: they do in fact have Android now. When I first
Speaker 1: saw it, it was only for the Apple iPhone. But
Speaker 1: in this case, it's using WiFi to to let you
Speaker 1: control the the device, and you do it through an
Speaker 1: interface on your smartphone. And uh, it's similar to what
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, except that you know it's it's
Speaker 1: a a WiFi frequency, not the same as the old
Speaker 1: direct radio frequencies. So uh, we're seeing lots of kind
Speaker 1: of experimentation with this this older technology, I mean technology
Speaker 1: that dates back to the nineteenth century. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: really neat to see the kind of toys that are
Speaker 1: coming out. I was always a big fan of remote
Speaker 1: control cars. I owned a few. Um, haven't played with
Speaker 1: one in a long time because it drives my dogs crazy.
Speaker 1: I would have figured you'd play with one specifically because
Speaker 1: it drives your dogs crazy. They don't last so long,
Speaker 1: the toys, not the dogs. The last all day long.
Speaker 1: But no, they will like I had. I think it
Speaker 1: was a remote control Plymouth Prowler, a purple Plymouth prowler,
Speaker 1: because that's the only color they came in originally. And uh,
Speaker 1: the dogs didn't seem to like those classic lines. The
Speaker 1: same way I did. They're not roadster fans. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, I do have a remote controlled mouse that
Speaker 1: I use with my cats, and you know, so it's
Speaker 1: it's it sort of works. It's a very uh low
Speaker 1: end mouse, right, you plug it in, squeak mouse, not
Speaker 1: a mouse, right, and it it stays charged for maybe
Speaker 1: about five minutes of play. And by play that I
Speaker 1: mean I play with the mouse and the cats stare
Speaker 1: at it, like, what is that thing moving around on
Speaker 1: the floor. Never mind, I'm going to take a bath now.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that looks almost, but not exactly completely
Speaker 1: unlike an actual mouse. Yes, that's pretty much how it works.
Speaker 1: So we have fun, the humans have fun playing with
Speaker 1: the remote controlled mouse, and the cats and sit there,
Speaker 1: which is pretty much the way cats work anyway. You know.
Speaker 1: We we worked for their amusement and they just sit
Speaker 1: there and watch. So yeah, that's the that's the basics
Speaker 1: behind the whole r C toy thing. It's you know,
Speaker 1: like it is. It is simple, but it's it's relying
Speaker 1: on some very basic, uh foundations for the way energy
Speaker 1: and works, in the way the different kinds of energy
Speaker 1: interact and influence one another. It's a it's neat stuff
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more. We actually have an
Speaker 1: article on how stuff works dot com about how r
Speaker 1: C toys work and it has some useful information in
Speaker 1: there so you can learn more about it. And there
Speaker 1: are a lot of sites, like I said, online that
Speaker 1: cater to people who are into this in a hobbyist
Speaker 1: level where they will learn more about building their own
Speaker 1: and there are lots of kits that you can get.
Speaker 1: Um there you can also find out about competitions if
Speaker 1: you want to try and hone your skills as an
Speaker 1: RC driver and go up against other drivers. And it's
Speaker 1: neat stuff. Yeah, if you can. If you can find
Speaker 1: a hobby store near you, um, they're probably gonna know
Speaker 1: about things like competitions and good places to go because
Speaker 1: of course, actually that's something else. Uh. You know, we
Speaker 1: were talking about the FCC regulating radio frequencies here in
Speaker 1: the United States. Uh. You know, it's good to stay
Speaker 1: aware of the laws in your area. UM, maybe not
Speaker 1: necessarily as far as you know. If you can buy
Speaker 1: a remote controlled car in your local store, chances are
Speaker 1: it's probably legal, but you also want to make sure
Speaker 1: that you are operating these devices in places that are okay,
Speaker 1: especially things like planes, because the planes need quite a
Speaker 1: bit of space um to operate, and there may be
Speaker 1: areas that are specifically off limits to stuff like that
Speaker 1: for safety reasons, or you might be near a residential neighborhood.
Speaker 1: You also want to operate them in a safe place,
Speaker 1: um you know, for obvious reasons. You don't want to
Speaker 1: hurt somebody or yourself or destroy your your brand new
Speaker 1: RC car. Yeah. Yeah, so it's uh when your RC
Speaker 1: car met up with a real life car. Yeah and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so you definitely want to to do that,
Speaker 1: especially if you're investing some some real money into these hobbies,
Speaker 1: um you know. And plus you don't want to run
Speaker 1: a foul with the law and end up with a
Speaker 1: happy ticket na Um, Johnny Law might have some words
Speaker 1: with you. So so yeah, I keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: You want to operate these things safely and uh and responsibly. Yes.
Speaker 1: And if you guys have requests for any other sort
Speaker 1: of topic you think would be interesting for us to cover,
Speaker 1: let us know on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled. There
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