Moment with Mike: Trying to be one of the cool kids

0 May 16, 2013, 11:44 a.m.

Main Photo: Moment with Mike: Trying to be one of the cool kids

5/20/2013

By Mike Garrison
LiveRC.com

Do you remember in elementary school when all of the cool kids would hang upside down on the monkey bars, even though the recess aid said not to? I sure do. I wanted so bad to be a cool kid, and one day I decided I was going to be! It was the first time in my life that I got knocked out, and woke up in the principal's office.

I am an avid offroad R/C racer, but don't have a lot of experience racing in other forms of R/C. My Facebook news feed lately has been flooded with all sorts of R/C that I've never really experienced or tried out. After looking at countless pics and videos of others out enjoying these different forms of R/C, I decided that I too should join the cool kids and try them out!

First up was rock crawling. I've never had much of an interest personally in R/C rock crawling until I became friends with Novak's Charlie Suangka on Facebook. This guy's rock crawling photos and status updates got me so hyped to join the cool kids, that I went out and bought a rock crawler. Knowing NOTHING about R/C rock crawling I equipped my new ride with some electronics I had laying around (Novak Pulse ESC and Ballistic 7.5 motor), found myself a pile of rocks, and pulled the trigger.

Let me be the first to tell you that a 7.5 motor is NOT an ideal choice for rock crawling. Let me also tell you that no matter how easy the cool kids make rock crawling look, it is far from easy. It took roughly three minutes before I had destroyed my crawler, and had yet to successfully climb a rock.

Next in line is onroad racing. I have always enjoyed watching and keeping up with the onroad scene, but have never really had the opportunity to do it for myself. Our local track opened up a Traxxas Rally Carpet Onroad Class for the 1:16 scale rally cars. This is a spec class, however, with the powerful Traxxas brushless system and LiPos, these cars are FAST. The cool kids make onroad racing at these speeds so easy and fun. I decided in order to get used to it, I would set up a parking lot course of my own for some practice before going racing.

Did you know that onroad racing means racing on the road...or carpet? It didn't take long before the car was moving faster than my eyes were working, and I landed it precisely in the nearby sewer drainage pit. I'm going to be honest, once you submerge an R/C car in poo water, it will NEVER be the same.

Last but not least, R/C helicopters. How awesome is it when the cool kids are buzzing around, flipping tricks, and freestyling all over town? Naturally after seeing this in Facebook video action, I went out and bought me a RTR helicopter. I was SO amped to start flying I bought spare batteries, a special charger, and even the helicopter that makes laser beam shooting noises when I press a button on the controller.

This took place several months ago. To this day, search committees still have not found or recovered either of the two "indoor only" helicopters that I flew outside. They were last seen entering the clouds out of control, and have yet to be seen again. (Yes, after losing one...I saw another YouTube video of R/C heli's and went to buy another.)

Detectives say that there is little hope of finding their remains, and they are presumed to be dead. Their relative location is unknown as both were carrying fully charged battery packs, meaning they could fly at top speed in any direction for up to 20 minutes.

So what is the moral to the story here? The moral of this story is that R/C is like going to recess in elementary school, even though the cool kids can do something and get away with it...doesn't mean you should. If you do it anyways, be fully prepared to get knocked out and end up in the principals office, and/or have your pit space covered with a blown apart rock crawler, a stanky sewer soaked onroad car, and only memories of the helicopters that you once had.

(If you live in this general area of the United States, and happen to see a little blue or yellow helicopter flying by while making laser beam noises, please contact the LiveRC headquarters immediately.)