Rally course ideas, suggestions?
 

Hey everybody,

I am currently working on building a true rally course for the Bit's.

Currently carving it out a 4" thick piece of packing styrofoam that measures appro. 2' by 4'.

There will be dips and valleys all leading to an uphill section at a grade to where the bits will be able to climb it.(i.e. only about 10-15 degrees)

I'm using different grades of sandpaper epoxied down to the styrofoam for the roadway to simulate different textures in the road.
If anyone has any ideas, comments or suggestions I'd appreciate hearing them.
Thanks in advance.

p.s. this will be a course designed for torque and driving skill, not speed.

uhhhhh
 

put some tabletops kickers and a loop in it also put some stuff to brake through

Way ahead of ya,

Plans include 2 tabletops.

As for something too brake through? I could use some inspiration there.

uhhhhh
 

make a sugar window to brake through

I'm thinking more along the lines of plastic snow.

Y'know from a snow globe.
and you do mean drive through right, not to bust through?

break, not brake as in to stop...

Cool i'm doing one too!

a good idea would be to have a section that is snowy so that your car makes grooves that other cars tires will naturally fall into like real snow. you could also make a peice that you could remove from the track and put in different places that is really slipery like ice.

you could put baby powder down to stop the cars if they arent going fast enough... and itll lube the gears @ the same. like a big pile, mud bogs style

and the whole rec room smells baby fresh:D

All great ideas guys, there will be different sections covering all terrain types.

The baby powder idea I think would be great at the bottom of a steep downhill I have planned.

Basically the track is a bunch of steps going up gradually until you reach the top, then you will be coming down a slope of about 30 degrees. All in all you will have traveled about a foot and a half above the lowest level, and then coming down.

Think of a roller coaster here, a long way up with a quick trip down, repeat, repaet, repeat.

Racer 9, your in my area so if ya wanna race on this thing I'll let ya be the first one on it besides me.

Keep the ideas coming... and thx so far!

umm are u gonna have trees and bushes n stuff?

you could always find some plastic people and put them at the u turn parts...for some reason people like to stand soo close...

yup, and they ALWAYS get hit.

sweet dood. you have to take some photographs when your done man.

I plan on having trees and bushes lining the entire thing.
As for the people, they're a must!

Something else I'm planning on is one of those desktop fountain waterfalls sending water down the middle of the field. You won't be driving through it, but over it on a bridge.

I will be posting pics during the construction here in this thread so stay tuned!

Keep the ideas coming.

Oh for the area of the track meant tosimulate ice I will be picking up a piece of polished marble, which I will coat with baby powder.

ive always been wondering...how well does a bit(or any RC) do in water? :D
wonder if theres a way to compleatly seal the internals so that they dont get wet

wellits a small DC current, if you seal up your pcb i doubt you can do much to it, but yeah all you do it spray it with some electronics silicone i imagine to keep allthe terminals dry and go to town.

Hey Pwalk how big is this exactly, how much room too, and are u going to have a hill wher u can gain enough speed to fly off of? Also make sure u make a wet road coarse i made one and its hella fun to drive on. Just alot of spinouts. Please Post pix as soon as possible. Others and I want to see how well u did . Thx

i used to drive this in puddles it would just kind of hydroplane over them then drip dry as it was driving. Yes it still works just i don't use it much cus it is a 4 hour charge for 20 min of driving. i like the slippery track part idea and i would love to see some pics of it being built and when it is done tell us how the baby powder works as snow. ACTION SHOTS

u can buy a quick charger for those tyco RC batt packs from most hobby shops, then itll take 10-15 minutes to charge

were getting off topic
 

this is aparently a quick charger it says 4 hours quick charge on it but i thing i will have to take another look (been a long time since i have used this anyways)

well its quick condisering it can take up to 8 hours on trickle, i am talking about the batt chargers that you use with normal elec cars, like the kind they use to race.. i have a few chargers for my blackfoot (also have like 4 blackfoots)

The track started out as being 2' by 4', but it's looking as it's going to end up as 4'x4'.

The jump will be enough to fly about 6 inches, just enough to keep it on the track, landing in a pile of baby powder to slow it down.

As for these things being waterproofed? I would just use tape to cover up the charging contacts on the bottom.

Nice ...o ya are u going to put like gravel and sand or just leave it as a bunch of styrofoam snow pieces? or none at all?

I'm trying a variety of different materials for the track surfaces.
Course grit sandpaper will be used for the uphills as it seems it offers the best traction.
Using playsand and/or potting soil for the rest of the track. The bits will get dirty!
The basic layout is complete, I will post pics as soon as my butt gets to a store to buy a cord for my video camera. ( I need a 4-pin firewire cord to a USB, apparently hard to find??)

By the way, the whole course will have fine grit sandpaper underneath it, so as too offer a little traction when you get bogged down.

i thought i had time on my hands. that sounds pretty cool.

i like the idea of the sandpaper undereverything, could help you win the race. is there a way that you could dye some babypowder brown so it looks like mud?

Pwalk, how much was the Styrofoam board you bought?

Did you get one of those Styrofoam boards that they sell at hobby shops, or the kind for insulation that they sell at hardware stores?

thx in advance

Insulation sold at The Home Depot. Paid $5 for a package of 6 pieces measuring 4'x 1' 3/4. It's half an inch thick. The track so far has used up 2 packages.

Total cost to date is $20

So how did u make jumps and hills if they are only half an inch? Hotglue? and did u use any cardboard or posterboard? if so how? sorry so many questions .. this is just really interesting!!:D

really dude put some pics up of the construction site.

That is alot of questions!!

First things first, I'm using "Liquid Nails" brand adhesive to fasten both the foam, and the baseboard together.

Second, just ran a test run here through some potting soil and it just mucks up the gears too much. They run through large amounts of baby powder with just enough of a problem to make it interesting driving it.

As for the jumps, hills etc. You gotta keep in mind that these motors don't have a lot of torque so I'm keeping the uphills very long and staggered. I'm using foamboard for the ramps/ hills purchased at any reputable arts and crafts store.

Hope I answered them all, back to building the course, thx to all of you for the responses, hopefully we can all run on this thing in the near future.

sweet dood. id fly out to philly just to race on that thing... and maybe to grab some awesome philly cheese steaks at jims steaks! with cheeze whizz!!!

Hey your more than welcome up here Krillin,and Jim's steaks are one of the best. And don't believe the hype people over Pat's & Geno's Steaks, they suck!

Update:
Ok now everyone is writing me looking for photos of the "construction site" so here's the deal.
I have a Sony Digital Video Camera with a 4-Pin firewire port, My computer doesn't have a firewire adapter! I went to CompUSA last night looking for a cord and they said I wouldn't be able to find a 4-Pin to USB cord. Now I know there has to be one out there so I need your help people. I have pics stored on my camera from the beginning of construction. So if anyone can help me out with this I'd really appreciate it. As soon as I can I will be posting these pics. Thx for the patience everyone.

The track is coming along with the girlfriend getting ready to paint it this weekend, stay tuned.

u could always go buy a card that would create a firewire port on your computer (they are small like SCSI cards or netwrok cards)

check out www.pricewatch.com thats where i bought all the parts for my comp.

Will do, I appreciate the help.

The more and more I drive on the prototype here I think I need to learn to use a soldering iron for these mods out there.
The "MAX TORQUE" one looks tailor made for this course.

Thanks for the responses, one of the reasons I'm building this thing is to really race my Silver WRX BIT on. Flat tracks are great, but I want hills, dirt, ramps etc.

Note: When building this type of course the higher you build it the longer the track, which eventually made me reconsider the height of this thing. I am now keeping it no higher than 15" from the lowest spot on the course. The Bit's were simply not lasting more than 3 laps after tackling the hills I have setup.

Back to work, thx for the responses

cool!:D :cool: :eek: :p

hey guys i was just lookin around at the admirals website and look what i happend to find:

http://groups.msn.com/TheAdmiralsLai...y.msnw?Page=12

i wanna drive on it so bad...

Thanks Krillin, the bar has been raised.

That course is unbelievable! The detail he put into it is disgusting, makes me want to take my track and trash it.

My course right now is 4'x2' with a maximum height of about a foot. Looks as though I may have to tag an extra foot or 2 now.

Heres a question? Anyone have a clue how to make those slopes look like that? Here I am carving the hell out of styrofoam and they look nothing like that.

I will be posting pics this week, a friend if mine has a Sony cpu with the connection I need to download pics from my CPU.