Kevinmham

Hi there. Just wondering if anyone else has any rc animals, or other unusual rc things. I have a 6 foot rc alligator, a 20 inch rowboat( powered by rowing only)' an Amphicar, and a surfer, plus your normal cars and boats. What do you have?

y2blade

lol I've never seen anything like that before..any more pics of the Alligator?

Kevinmham

I do have more pics, and ill post them when i find them. I have video of it on youtube at Kevinmham's channel, if you want to check it out in action.

y2blade

Oh man that is brilliant <div>[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOlgUP-E_aw&amp;list=PL118A7C259FA0818E[/youtube]</div><div>
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Kevinmham

Thanks! That was the first gator. It was about 3 feet long. The next one is twice the size, with working jaw, eyeballs, eyelids, and a sound module to make it roar. The ducks up here have never seen something like this, so they were freaked out by both of them. You can here them quacking in the video.

Deathwish

My Feedback: (6)

i like the Aligator but could improve it by making it like a sub and be one piece. Seen the video. pretty kewl.

Kevinmham

The idea was to make something simple. A sub would require more complex equipment. My gator is fairly simple: one rudder servo and one speed control. It could be built like this and work fine . I spiced it up a bit by adding some moving features. There are two little servos for the eyeballs and eye lids, one for the jaw, and one to operate the switch for the "roar" sound. A semi- submersible was originally planned, but was abandoned. The first little gator started as a floating pond decoy. It was intended to scare various varmits from your pond. I added a motot and rudder and went from there. The next one was carved from foam, using the smaller one as a model, but doubled in size. All the equipment and electronics are in the head. The other two pieces just float behind. Up close, you can see it is in three pieces, but once it is a little ways a way, it starts to look more realistic. Especially if the pond is murky.

Kevinmham

Here are so e pics. The motor is in the pod under the head. The hatch is held on by magnets. The other pics show the sound module( taken from a fisher price dinosaur toy) and the amplifier I made , so you can hear the roar from across the pond. The last one shows the mouth with the speaker and the jaw servo in the roof of the mouth.

Kevinmham

Kevinmham

The body is just white styrofoam carved with 80 grit sand paper wrapped around a d-cell battery. I wanted a rough look, not smooth, so this worked great and was quick to do . It was painted using a combination of acrylic paint and then covered in a two part epoxy called enviro tex lite. This gave the styrofoam surface some strength.

ScoobySting

That's so cool! nice job! That's what I call unusual RC, thinking outside the box! And you can clear out unwanted birds while having fun! Will go check the videos.

S

foodstick

pure genius.

Kevinmham

One of the other club members at our pond was mentioning that he hasn't seen as many birds hanging around anymore. The seagulls just circle around, spot the gator, and fly off !

Kevinmham

Our club participated in a hobby show in a local mall, last month. One of the members placed a coin in the gator's mouth, to see the people's reaction. Not long after, all the kids were asking mom for change, waveing and shouting " here alligator!", or "here crocodile!". I would move the gator over to them and open the mouth. If they got the coin in, I would move the jaw up and down, like it was chewing. If they took too long to throw their change, I would make the alligator roar at them. Sometimes the little kids were scared! It was very funny to watch, and drew alot of attention to our club's display. We made a couple extra dollars , as well!

steveshobbyroom

Well, nothin like that really but my brother and I have been talking about an oar powered viking war ship (of course you'd need a simple sound module that yells "Row" each cycle lol. Wouldn't be hard to do. I like your rowboat (and the gater to for that matter). My brother did make a nice RC riverboat powered by a rear paddle wheel driven only by the crank linkage visible into the engine room. Looks purty sharp with scale model railroad figures riding on it.

Kevinmham

An oar powered viking ship would deffinetly be an unusual rc project. It would be pretty cool, too! I have thought about making an aquatic mammal: beaver, nutria, muskrat, something like that. It could be made out of styrofoam, like the gator, and made to look like it is half submerged. It wouldn't need many features, just an opening mouth to reveal big yellow teeth. I figured I could go to a thrift store and get some kind of nasty looking fur coat, and use it to cover the beast. When I get to the pond, I could throw some sticks in the water, and then use the beaver to go retrieve them. The pond that I use is specifically made for rc boat use, and there is a pathway over looking it. You can hear people walk by talking and then say " ...oh my god! Is that an alligator?! I didnt know we had those up here!" Then they come down for a look and discover it is not real. Good for a laugh. Many people have taken pictures of it, and have posed with it, pretending to feed it, or get bitten by it! I figured a beaver would be even more believeable because we have them around here.

otzel

I am looking to buy a remote control alligator or alligator head to scare away pesky geese on my lake frontage. Do you sell anything like that or know where I could get one?