The community of remote controlled cars
From Mod Mania
Task One MOD MANIA ESSAY The toy Industry has been around for centuries, and has had a big influx in terms of innovation and technology that have been used to develop toys to perform more tasks for the user both complex and simple especially in the 21st century. Toys and technology have combined together to produce endless possibilities of toys that entertain both children and adults of all ages for hours on end. The subject that I have chosen to perform my research on, are Radio Controlled Cars. The first Remote Controlled Car Club I began my research on was, the Boronia Radio Controlled Car Club, which is located in Victoria, This club to my surprise prohibits Nitro powered cars, which are the dominant type of car in the market followed by electric powered cars. The reason this was in place was because of the noise the Nitro cars caused, which was not taken kindly by the surrounding neighbors. The club only runs electric powered cars which produce almost no sound whatsoever. The club contains a committee, which has 5 main positions within it which include the president, vice president, secretary. treasurer and the editor. The club also had a list of sponsor which helps its funding, perhaps the biggest one was “TAMIYA” the leading Remote Controlled Car producer from Japan, and I know this also because I used to buy my R/C cars from this maker as an adolescent.
Further in depth browsing thru the website, I was able to gather the events that are run by the R/C club which are help every Wednesday of the month, and a committee meeting which is held on the first Tuesday of the month. The clubs racing works by a point system, there was unfortunately no Information of the current standings of any of the members. The website of the R/C club also included a Forum for the members to discuss various topics within the topic of this hobby. The first point of interest that came to my attention was the page for rules, classes and code of conduct which highlights all the expectations the club had for its members, the classes which were interesting was the F1 classes, which are 1; 12 scale electric F1 R/C cars. The next Forum that visited was the ‘General Chat ‘page where member’s discuss topics like the weather on the race day, misplaced parts at the venue and etc. I noticed a MOD which was performed onto the R/C cars were the installation of on board cameras, so the members could race from the comfort of a seat and in front of a screen, and have a better judgment of when to take over other racers during a race. This however came as a surprise to me, as I believed the enjoyment of the hobby came when the user raced their R/C car from a podium where you could experience the race more than sitting, but the disadvantage of that was the bad judgment of timing of when the user needed to take over another car during the race. I also continued my research onto other R/C clubs and one in particular was a Nitro powered off road car club located in Castlemaine, which is approximately a 1 hour drive North of Melbourne. The main cars that are raced here are 1/8 scale Nitro buggies, 1/10th scale 2WD and 4WD electric buggies. The club holds it’s off road event on the first Sunday of every month. Some of the problems that came to my attention on the forum of this community, that were discussed on the topic of off- road racing was the fact that the cars would tend to collect a lot of dirt during racing which prohibited a lot of them from finishing races, another was the problem of the cars over heating due to the strain the engines face for going up hills and extra friction of dirt ground. The community did discuss ways to overcome this problem and so they included ideas for MOD’s to be added to the R/C cars. The overheating problem was easily overcome with the installation of a small fan that operated independently from the power supply of a rechargeable battery. The second issue was the buildup of dust and dirt within the engine bay which could often stall the cars and required them to be dusted out, and the solution for this was to take plastic strips and tape them to any gaps within the body of the off road vehicle therefore minimizing the issue of dust and dirt building up within the engine bay.
One thing that I noticed that was absent from both these clubs was the fact that there was no evidence of the clubs providing information of any new comer information, of what a new member might want to purchase as a starting point, which could be helpful within the community to help promote the hobby to a broader audience. The reason I think this is evident is because the club wants to remain exclusive to people who are truly interested and passionate about the hobby.
References http://www.brccc.org http://rccars.castlemaine.net/ http://www.sercc.com.au/ Adam Reza S3236102
