Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: seeker@indirect.com (Stan Eker)
Subject: Re: Big Trak
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Date: Thu, 18 May 1995 05:55:49 GMT
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Rich 924 (rich924@aol.com) maundered:
: There used to be a rather interesting toy called Big Trak. It was a six
: wheeled toy that could be programmed to move fowards reverse and turn.
: There was a book called Microprocessor controlled Robotics that converted
: this to have and on board computer. Right not I can't find the book.

:  The point being that 10 years ago there was a toy that had motors and
: optical encoders on a differential drive setup. Now there does not seem to
: be any such toys. It was an excellent platform. Does anyone know of any
: toys like that now?

I looked high and low for something like it.  Nada.  With the advent of the
speaker-independant voice chips, though, someone may re-do it Real Soon Now.
Probably more high school and college folk wound up with 'em than the kids
they were intended for originally.  I'm still keeping an eye out at the
local Salivation Army stores et al. for an old Big Trak.

The only independantly-tracked toy I found after hitting every store in
Phoenix was the CAT Excavator (they also had a bulldozer).  No smarts, no
encoders, and it's sold in either RC or wired-remote.  It's a good chassis,
but the plastic could be a little less brittle...

The wired-remote version was $40 or so at Toys 'R Us.  The top platform is
fixed, but can be modified to permit about 270' rotation (with work), making
it the current best-bet for a tracked carpet crawler.  The old stuff that
Radio Shack had is gone everywhere, per my global search request (sniffle).

For larger electric bases, I'm hoping someone takes the crop of kiddie
electric cars and makes one tracked, instead of the lousy front steering on
all of 'em in the stores.  Probably not, as the track + gear would be a
significant hazard to curious little fingers.  It'd make a heck of a
platform, though.  

