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