Fun with Remote Control Vehicles

The Best Remote Control Cars

It’d be too easy to dismiss remote control cars with a sweeping generalisation. In fact, there’s a huge amount of variation among the different models – there are RC cars that can go over water, up walls or which showcase extra systems. They aren’t technically remote controlled cars (they pilot themselves), but a quick glance at the old DARPA Grand Challenge entries indicate the future for some of these technologies.

Below we’ve collected some of the coolest, fastest and most interesting RC cars we’ve seen, though if you think you can top them then we’d love to hear from you. Post your own projects, whatever they may be, in the forums!

World’s Fastest RC Car
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Nic Case’s orange bullet won the world record for fastest RC car back in 2007, achieving over 134MPH. Since then he’s broken his own record, managing over 160MPH with a second car, the Schumacher Mi3.5 Streamliner.

Nic's overall goal is to breach the 200MPH barrier, an objective he's steadily closed in on over the years!



Amphibious RC Tank
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Hovercrafts are cool, but there comes a time when you need wheels to move forwards. Then there are times you don’t. So, this amphibious tank is able to retract its wheels up on top of its curved hull, allowing it to move smoothly across all garden terrain.

The turret on top can fire up to 20 meters, but the best thing about this tank is that, when the wheels are deployed, you can ferry nibbles around on top!



Wall-Climbing RC Car
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Air Hogs’ Zero Gravity Nano might be small, but it makes up for its stature with a suction mode that lets it stick to walls. The car chassis is built around a fan that sucks the Nano down onto whatever surface it is resting on, meaning it can race across ceilings as easily as it can move on the floor. The result is a bit noisy, but undeniably cool.



HydroCar
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Developed by The Science Museum, this remote control car is perfect for those who feel guilty recharging their car batteries every ten minutes. The car itself is run on hydrogen, which is harvested from water in a special solar-powered refuelling station.

Of course, it's all undermined by the fact that the controller needs conventional batteries - but it's the thought that counts, right?



Internet Controlled Car
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Built around a LinkSys WRT54GL router, this remote controlled buggy sports a Panasonic webcam that it can feed back to a laptop over 500m away. The car itself was the cheapest single component, costing just $5 USD, though it was almost completely rebuilt by hand.

The designer has supplied instructions detailing every step of the build, which is handy if you fancy making one of your own.