Rocket Car
In working on the autonomous car project, my friend “Router” Dave and I decided that the R/C Car was not going nearly fast enough (even with the upgraded motor and gearing). How on earth would we fix this?
Luckily, I had a few “A” size Estes rocket engines in a box in my closet. After a bit of duct tape and some quick and dirty wiring, we had a genuine rocket car. It went pretty fast, but … there was still something lacking.
Router went to our local Hobbytown USA and picked up a pack of “D” rocket engines. Estes engine sizes are like the Richter scale, that is B’s are twice as powerful as A’s, C’s twice that of B’s, etc…, so we’re looking at a significant performance increase.
We took everything out to the airport to find a long, straight, wide and preferably empty road. Duct tape in hand, we fixed the first D engine to the bottom of the car with high hopes.
Everything went off without a hitch, except it still didn’t go nearly fast enough! That and we had 2 more engines and a still-intact RC car.
With more duct tape, we put the 2 remaining engines on the bottom of the car.
Hilarity Ensued.
Take a look at the youtube video that highlights the first and second attempts:
See the smile?
Not a bad Sunday afternoon if I may say so!
As always, more pics at the Autonomous Car Photoset on flickr.
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