[Rulof] never ceases to impress us with what he comes up with and how he hacks it together. Seriously, how did he even know that the obscure umbrella part he used in this project existed, let alone thought of it when the time came to make a magnet mount? His hack this time is a real world, tabletop race track made for his little brother, and by his account, his brother is going crazy for it.
His race track is on a rotating table and consists of the following collection of parts: a motor, bicycle wheel, casters from a travel bag, rubber bands (where did he get such large ones?), toy car and steering wheel from his brother, skateboard wheels, the aforementioned umbrella part and hard drive magnets. In the video below we like how he paints the track surface by holding his paint brush fixed in place and letting the track rotate under it.
From the video you can see the race track has got [Rulof] hooked. Hopefully he lets his brother have ample turns too, but we’re not too sure. Some additions we can imagine would be robotics for the obstacles, lighting, sounds and a few simulated explosion effects (puffs of flour?).
And when you’re done viewing [Rulof]’s racing, check out some more of his ingenuity with his surprisingly effective microphone made from a hard drive and his leg mounted, beer bottle, underwater propulsors.
So many hacks here, and a happy brother to boot!
I had something like this when I was a kid except it had a strip of paper with the road on rollers and it was handheld.
Very cool – it reminds of a handheld toy I got to play with when I was in hospital as a kid. It had little Cars that went around a circuit all driven by magnets as well.
very neat tech to use all the Nintendo parraphanalia as obsticals
May be something like this? https://www.dropbox.com/s/ltbiv24juwfctm2/hqdefault.jpg?dl=0
This toy was popular in USSR. I remember it from my childhood.
Looks like fun for a young one! Were there any sounds to it too?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAn2wWU1w5g
Here’s one of this. I’m not sure whether it’s original Soviet toy or modern replica.
You can also watch related videos where you can see cyrillic names. Toy was called “За рулем”. You can copy-paste too.
Honestly, the build is very clever, and with unexpectedly immersive results too!
Now, beat this EA Games!
Who wants ‘Need For Speed’ any more?
I have nothing negative to say here. This is hacking.
Needs a Pi Zero with camera, for first person view.
Other than that, it’s practically perfect.
Old school….
Just had a flashback to an arcade game that was similar to this in concept. However, in the cabinet, it projected through a cellophane track and the car was a similar projection connected to the steering wheel. It was mechanical collision detection….0
Man you gotta love the internets… Here it is…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1WSYdn1b8I
Wow! Amazing what they achieved with just mechanics and optics. Thanks for this.
Wow, I love that sound!
Remove the rear gearbox to allow the rear wheels to spin more freely, might take care of the jerky movements.
I think this is really a fun project and cleverly implemented. Perhaps a bit loud though, unless that’s a video recording issue?
The noise is from that big motor. It looks like it is from a food mixer or something similar.
This was inspired by the inhalation of BATH SALTS