Collaborate Disseminate
Racing management game based on Formula 1 makes an impressive leap from mobile devices to PC. Continue reading ‘Motorsport Manager’ Shows That Racing Is About So Much More Than Driving
[ITMAN496] and his local HAM radio group entered the Power Wheels Racing Series with great intentions, a feeling of unlimited power, and the universal spirit of procrastination all hackers share.
It wasn’t the first time his group had worked together on something a little different, such as a robot that can deploy an antenna by climbing poles. However, this one had a time limit and they ended up trying to fit it all in the week before the race.
They had a pretty good design. [ITMAN496] had modeled the entire frame in SketchUp and even did physics simulations to get …read more
Continue reading Fail of the Week: Power Wheels Racing Series
In the drag racing world, a Christmas tree is the post at the start line that sequentially lights up a set of yellow lights followed shortly after by a green light to tell the drivers to go, the lights obviously giving it its seasonal name. Included at the base of the tree are lasers to detect the presence of the cars.
[Mike] not only made his own Christmas tree for his RC cars, but he even made an end-of-track circuit with LED displays telling the cars how long they took. Both start and finish hardware are controlled by Pololu Wixel …read more
Continue reading RC Drag Racing Christmas Tree and Speed Trap
One problem with engineering education today is a lack of experimental teaching. Oh sure you may have a project or two, but it’s not the focus of the program because it’s hard to standardize a test around. Typically sections of the field are taught in a highly focused theoretical course by a professor or graduate student with a specialization in that section. Because classes treat individual subject areas, it’s entirely possible to get a really good understanding of two pieces of the same puzzle, but never realize that they fit together to make a picture. It’s only when a freshly …read more
Continue reading Books You Should Read: Engineer to Win By Carroll Smith
We weren’t certain if this Star Wars fan film was out kind of thing until we saw the making of video afterwards. They wanted to film a traditional scene in a new way. The idea was to take some really good quadcopter pilots, give them some custom quadcopters, have them re-enact a battle in a scenic location, and then use some movie magic to bring it all together.
The quadcopters themselves are some of those high performance racing quadcopters with 4K video cameras attached. The kind of thing that has the power to weight ratio of a rocket ship. Despite …read more
Continue reading Drones, Clever Hacks, and CG Come Together For Star Wars Fan Film
A NASCAR crew chief got an unwelcome crash course in Bitcoin and ransomware, but at least he got a sponsorship deal out of it. Continue reading How Ransomware Led to a NASCAR Sponsorship
What’s to be gained from reverse engineering a four-decade-old video game? As it turns out, quite a lot, and as you’ll learn from [Norbert]’s recent talk at the ViennaJS meetup, it’s not just about bringing a classic back to life.
The game in question is Kee Game’s Sprint 2, a monochrome 2D car race that allowed two players to compete head to head. The glorious Harvest Gold and Burnt Orange color scheme just screams 1970s, and it might be hard to see why this game was once a popular quarter-eater. But it was quite engaging for the day, and [Norbert] …read more
Continue reading Forty-Year-Old Arcade Game Reveals Secrets of Robot Path Planning