Bigtrak

I bet you can already guess what this is going to be about... I GOT MY BIGTRAK! (well actually it arrived on Friday, but I've been busy okay?) :) Okay so if you're going "What's a Big Trak?" then you should click that link, but essentially it was a toy that apparently came out in 1979 (although I don't remember them until at least mid 80's!) and it looks like a sort of space tank (as you'll see) and you can program it with basic commands, essentially: forward, backwards, left, right (in minutes like a clock), fire phaser (light+noise) and a simple loop command. You key it all in and press "GO" and off it goes!!! Okay so it's not exactly the most technical thing ever, but it's so cool! Unfortunately I was never able to have one as a kid (I suspect they were quite expensive!) so when I heard that last year they were re-releasing them I was quite excited.

However, they originally came out for about £40 and I was like... meh... I know all too well that it'll get played with a little, but then I'll get bored and it'll never get touched ever again so £40 is a bit of a waste of money... HOWEVER... it was in an April 1st sale and they were reduced for one day only to £15... BARGAIN! So naturally for that I just had to buy one... and then I had to wait a WEEK for it to be delivered! (longest week of my life...)


Apparently it's actually a bit different from the original because it's lighter, it doesn't have the engine noise whilst running, it doesn't need as many batteries now and a few other little details (apparently!), but I don't care... IT'S AWESOME! Now if only they'd re-release the transport/trailer accessory... that'd be so cool! I don't tihnk they'd going to though.

So although I'm sure I will get bored of this within a few days, I've got an idea for a few project because I've seen a lot of modifications where people have gutted it and used the basic motors with their own programmable boards (essentially updating it to the 21st century!) and that sounds like a fun project... if I ever get enough time anyway! :)