all racing games used physical items way back in the day (like when I was a kid)

but this sure beats the hell out of a hotwheel glued to a wire with scrolling paper as a track though

I’ve been wanting to do this, glad someone did.

For version 0.3:
Wireless induction charging in the base of the track, a la fzero.
Voltage regulators to run the camera and its transmitter off of the RC battery so that the center of gravity is lower.
Multiple cars/controllers for real time competition.

For version 0.4:
Laser tag weapon system between cars!
turbo boost!
sweet jumps?
Bring it to my house?

I may as well get this out of the way before the trolls do:

No, it’s not technically a hack. No, there don’t seem to be instructions on how to reproduce it. Yes, there’s a very real possibility an Arduino was used somewhere in the process of designing/making/implementing this.

Still, I WANT ONE!!!

Pointless and totally awesome. Needs at least two cars and a better looking track :)

I like the skybox graphics. :)

add some augmented reality and this could be one stellar platform. need to try this with my slot cars.

The first thing he does need to fix is the car, lower the center of balance on it. If you could get the CoB low enough, you could put a roll cage on the top of the vehicle, when it crashes it simply rolls over and sets itself back up, like a weeble.

The only thing keeping that track from looking really well done is the ripple of paper in the middle of the road. It looks like he could use something to glue that down. It does not look like he sets the track up, then lays a roll of paper down, so secure the road surface a little better.

Better camera system would be great too.

forgive me for answering in german:

geil, geil, geil!

Cheers!

15 years ago we made a somewhat similar prototype for an augmented reality system. The RC car had 2 cameras on it for stereoscopic vision that were fed into the helmet mounted display. Furthermore the car had ultrasound sensors which fed into renderers which knew about the (static) scenery. By flipping a switch the user would either view the track through the car’s “eyes” or a bird’s eye view of the car & track.

That track looks like lots of fun to drive, top marks for the entire build, lucky to have all that indoor space to build it in too.

FPV RC car driving is a lot of fun, if you don’t want to go to the trouble of building a whole arcade cabinet then some good LCD glasses work great, especially if you take the time to somehow block off excess daylight so you only see the screens.

When I first got into it I found that driving the car from the camera mounted to the front of the RC car becomes easier and more ‘natural’ than driving it normally.

I got just got some Zeiss Cinemizer LCD glasses, pretty good optics though not as good optics on my high end Sony Glasstrons which are better for watching films etc., but oh so much more portable and ideal for FPV RC car driving.

cool

some ideas:
you could also make it playable through the internet

car needs to be self-righting

they could use a slot car track

multiple cars/players

The camera cutting out might be annoying in a way but it also gives it a nice ‘real’ effect, and it might prevent it from getting boring maybe?

And there are remote control toy cars that can flip and continue, might be an idea to use one of those, or add some attachment that tips it back.

I wanted to do something a while back. I modified an XMOD with some performance parts. I put a small wireless camera on the hood and could drive through the house watching on my TV. I was trying to tap into the controller signal but gave up on that end. Those things get pretty damn fast with the right stuff on them, mine was tested at 30mph, which is pretty wicked inside.

this is cool, i love it! make us the internet controller so we too can play! :-)

Lots of additional videos, photos and build infos on the different versions (mostly in german): http://racer.sputnic.tv/

Great build!

@Mythgarr: There was an Arduino involved, as mentioned in the subtitles.

@Headbonk: I did something similar to your RC car with a camera, except I built a tiny robot with a Wifi camera mounted on it, and instead of the TV, I watched the action on my computer. Instead of toys in a living room, I used mine to.. um… “explore the mysterious land of Underbed seeking new life (apparently inhabited by a civilization of Dust Bunnies)”. There’s no way I’d have built a dedicated cabinet for the control system, though. That’s hard core.

Version 2 of my system (still just something to toy around with) is going to use 4 cameras with a 90° POV, one pointed straight ahead and the other three pointed at the main compass headings (in other words, separated by 90°), which would feed back to a set of 4 projectors that would project the feed onto a ring of screens that would surround the user’s head, so you’d get a full view around the vehicle without the encumbrance of an HMD, or the hassle of tracking the user’s head/eye position to adjust the view of a single display as the user turns or looks around.

This is brilliant. it’s like an irl virtual reality… i think someone may have posted this on Fireviews already, actually

They have exactly this at Virtual Disney. Except instead of a cardboard track, it’s a maze built into the floor with around 10 vehicles you can drive around with.

Awesome. All the car needs now is a mini rocket launcher and sub machine gun attached to it for that added sense of realism missing from so many race games these days. Do it MEOW!