Nocturnal Transmissions

After a fairly promising day working on my rotary switching mechanism, I ran into a few major stumbling blocks. One: My amplifier which was supposed to make my motor go along with the music stopped working, and Two: my radio transmitters didn't work yet. Both of these things were hugely critical for my project to keep on advancing, so I spent the last few days just banging away at my circuits.

Unfortunately, so far I've only been able to crack the amplifier circuit, and it was a bit of a stupid problem. What happened was that I tried to insert a darlington transistor into my circuit, in order to alleviate the heat runaway I was experiencing with my normal transistor, but when I did it, I ended up feeding a nice nine volt shock straight into my iPod's headphone jack. Initially, they only damage was a burn to the left hand side of the screen, but alas, my problems didn't end there. As I figured out today, after two days of buggering around with this circuit and getting extremely frustrated, was that my iPod was now constantly putting out 1.3 volts, even when it was paused. This meant that my circuits were always on, and led me to believe that I was using PNP transistors or something else was wrong, and so I've been working this circuit over for the last two days unnecessarily.

The happy news is that this thing will work, and I even have proof!



As you can see, the switch is rotating along with the beat, which is exactly what I want it to do. Now the only thing that needs to be provided is the music, which will be transmitted through the ether to my machine.

This calls for an FM radio transmitter, of course! I found a great website with a few different FM transmitter circuits on it, and so I decided to try them out, with sometimes humourous results.
This eventually turned into this:


When I actually tried this out, I had to take it outside to due crazy interference inside our studio space. When I took it out, though, I got a very interesting result. With my radio tuned to 88.1 MhZ, I started picking up a Kanye West Song, which was odd, since I was playing AC/DC. I didn't think it was my transmitter, but as I was adjusting the trimmer, I got the channel to come in clear as a bell, and when I listened for a bit, I found something incredibly interesting. I was broadcasting a perfect signal from 107.9 MhZ over my transmitter... Weird, no? Somewhat disheartened that my circuit didn't work, but encouraged by the fact it actually did something, I went back to studio and made a new radio transmitter.


This turned into this:

The second one is a lot more complex, but I think the result was a bit better. I didn't get a clear signal, or anything discernible at all, but I did manage to detect a strong distortion that I could control with my trimmer while I was using it. It doesn't necessarily work just yet, but I plan on doing a lot more work on it tomorrow, and playing with the inductor coils to play with my frequencies a bit. I imagine I will be able to get a signal tomorrow, so here's hoping.

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it, that's for sure.

Rotary Switching Mechanism

So, after a talk with Patrick yesterday, we decided that maybe locomotion of the actual monster wasn't the way to go for my project. I had been working on making my machine move for quite some time, so I was a little bit dejected after our talk, but I found solace in my favourite online forums. During my visit on these particular forums, I came across a poster who had an avatar with a rotary engine animation in it. It didn't click at the time for me, so I can't remember his username, or which thread I saw his avatar in, but I did remember the rotary engine.
This is a picture of a rotary engine, and basically it just worked by using a ring of pistons surrounding a crankshaft. As the off-balanced crankshaft spins, it pushes and pulls the pistons in and out. My switch mechanism isn't quite like the rotary engine, though, because it will be powered by radio waves or audio input of some kind, so the power will come from an external electrical source, not a series of explosions.

First thing's first, I had to create some pistons for the crankshafts to fit into.
I used brass tubing for the piston, and millboard to hold the whole thing up. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the crankshaft being constructed, but its height determined the height of my millboard braces. Once these were created, I had to make connections from my crankshaft to my pistons, and thankfully, I found a great material for this type of thing.
This copper wiring that I borrowed from Candice worked perfectly, because it's malleable enough that it can be shaped easily, but strong enough that it can easily hold its shape. I made eight of these and eight pistons, and then connected them to my mount that has the crankshaft on it.

This it the mechanism with just four pistons mounted to it, but it looks much cooler with eight.


So no what I have is eight switches that will be controlled by the speed of the motor, which will be controlled by the volume and strength of the radio waves coming into my monster. I'm going to mount a small motor on this board to power the crankshaft in the center. Both pulleys are from my previous locomotion experiment, so I guess that wasn't a total loss. I plan to turn this into the nerve center of my monster, and I also plan on using my arduino board to start taking inputs from this switch and counting the number of rotations so that I can control my monster with more precision.

Everybody's Doing a Brand New Dance Now...

Locomotion is the name of the game for this post. I hate that song, by the way, but I suppose it fit.

After spinning my wheels for a few days trying to look for proper components to build my moving radio bot, I decided that it might be more productive to mock it up out of less desirable materials, so that I at least know what I'm building. The problem with looking for my good materials was that I had no real idea of what I was going to make, so it was impossible to find the parts.

So I started whipping things up using millboard and my remote control car that I had previously dissected.


The first step was just to attach some doweling into the holes in my wheels. Then, I had to construct something to hold the doweling in place and allow for a central axle to be put in.





These two small axle pieces now just needed to be connected to a main axle that would allow the center to spin independently of the chassis I would create afterwards. I put wooden doweling in between these two pieces to create the final axle, and then attached a self-made pulley to the axle so that it could spin with the motion of the motor.



The next step would be to connect this axle to a pulley powered by my radio, but that might have to wait.

Motor Madness

Finally, blogger is letting me post images and movies.

On Saturday afternoon, I made a breakthrough in my struggle with the MOSFETs and Darlington transistors. Basically, I said to hell with them and started back at square one: the regular transistor. After three days of slaving over a breadboard, making crazy, complex circuits, I finally prevailed using the simplest circuit yet.That's it... Seriously, that's all it is. It's just the positive of the radio and the nine volt battery hooked up to the collector, the negative of the radio hooked into the base, and the ground from the motor hooked into the emitter. Now, when voltage is applied to the base, it allows the circuit to be connected in the motor, which is powered by a nine volt battery, amplifying my signal enough to cause movement in the motor.

It took three days of being frustrated to come up with this. KISS... Anyway, I finally figured it out, and here's a little video of the setup in its working form. The small green wire on the top was added so that you could actually see the movement in the motor, and won't be there later on.




That's my proof of concept, I suppose, now it's time to create some kind of rigging so that this motor can somehow cause my radio powered monster to scuttle around.

Dr. Death and the MOSFETs

So, I was thinking of starting a band, and I think Dr. Death and the MOSFETs would be a pretty awesome name... Not really, it just describes the last couple of days for me.

The Dr. Death part refers to my Thursday morning activities. In just a few short hours I managed to wreck my AM transmitter and killed my radio for good, and the next few hours were spent feverishly researching MOSFETs and trying to create some sample circuits.

My AM transmitter bit the dust when I was trying to fit the assembly into the mint tin I was using. I desoldered a connection to another antenna, and when I was resoldering it to my good antenna, the whole antenna pin, which is connected on the inside of the chip, popped right out. I tried to put it back in, but it was a no-go. I was pretty sure Active Tech would have more, but of course, they don't. Uh oh...

After speaking with Carl, it was clear that my radio was pretty much buggered. By taking off the RF transmitter, I basically made the entire thing so sensitive and erratic that it won't function properly anymore, and I can't properly re-mount it. Fortunately, in my next visit to Value Village, I found a radio that was almost exactly the same. The only difference was that this new radio has a black case and a DC in jack. So, at least I still have a radio.

While speaking with Carl, he pretty much informed me that he wasn't sure how MOSFETs worked, either, which sucked for me, because I couldn't figure the bloody things out, either. I know that a MOSFET is supposed to be able to take a very small signal and amplify it. Nigel suggested a Darlington transmitter would do what I wanted, but a problem arose when I was researching them as well.

The difference between a darlington transistor (or any transistor) and a MOSFET is that a MOSFET is linear, meaning that it uses a ratio to determine the final output. That means hat if there is a very small signal on the gate, the MOSFET will only allow a small amount of the amplified current through as well. That means if you turn down the volume on the radio, the amplification will also be turned down. In a darlington transistor, a certain amount of current is needed to activate the switch, meaning if you turned the radio down, the signal that is amplified would be cut off completely, or would cut in and cut out as the song or speech reached a peak in signal strength.

I found a nice amount of links for MOSFETs, but i just couldn't get anything to work.
MOSFET Basics
MOSFETs
Do You Know Your Transistors From Your FETs and MOSFETs?

Since I couldn't get any of these circuits working, despite my research, I decided today to get back to basics and try to make some regular transistors work, and then work my way up from there. In my research today I found a really great website that explains all kinds of components and projects, and it's actually readable. I'll be posting this on the main blog later on.

The Electronics Club

From this site I was able to create two transistor circuits using a light sensor, which I think will have some application in my later monstrous transformations.

I was going to post images of the circuits, but apparently I can't, because Blogger is having problems...

Doctor Death Strikes again!!!

I'll update this post tomorrow, I suppose.

iPod AM Transmissions

I finally got my iPod AM transmitter working! It's kind of dirty still, but it does the job just fine for now.

This is the whole setup right here, but with one exception. The 7uF capacitor on this version I made last night was improperly mounted, causing my transmitter to cease transmission. I figured out the problem today and was able to test it with Matt "Fozzington" Vandenburg's radio upstairs in Russell. The result was pretty cool, and the signal is very clean, especially for an AM radio transmission. Range, however, is a problem, as it only works from about two feet away, but I'm going to try and rectify the situation with different types of antennae.

If you want to make something like this, you can just follow this simple little circuit diagram.

I made a small change to this, though. I used a 6V battery supply, as well as a 220 ohm resistor to handle the extra load. The capacitor I used was a 7uF one, instead of the recommended 10uF, but that was only because I had no 10uF capacitors at the time. The magical element here is of course, the crystal, which can be bought at Active Tech, and pictured here.

Bionic Monster

I feel like I haven't been posting enough, but I have been working. I'm just forgetful, that's all. I've been working on my radios and playing with the lights, but I had another idea that I'm somewhat excited about, but I'll get to that later.

After my little LED rail experiment, I set out to create a more pleasing looking array of LEDs, and perhaps in different colours.
These two beauties are my rings of LED lights that I was going to attach to my speakers. The LEDs' positive sides are all connected to the outer rings, and the negative sides, connected to the inner rings. They work quite nicely as I intended them to, but after I tested them out, I had a brainstorm because of my own childishness.

After I finished, I decided it would be funny to put the rings in my eyes, because they fit rather perfectly. This is when the brainstorm started, and I set about creating some light up goggles to wear around like an idiot.

As you can see, mission accomplished. This got me thinking, though. What if I became the monster instead of creating a brand new one? It's come to my attention through my various bits of research that although we've been theorizing about the ether for thousands of years, there's still no way to actually sense it... But why not? What if I could create some piece of clothing, or something of that nature to respond to changes in the ether. I came up with the idea of the clothing a long time after the glasses (at about 1:00 am, at which point I came into studio for the night) and I decided I should probably whip up some kind of sketch.

So, here it is, and as you can see it's basically a hat and a coat on the outside. The inside, however, is laden with LEDs, muscle wire, and unbalanced motors inside. The hat would contain three radios, and later on, a micro controller, to control everything inside the coat. The experience would then turn your experience with the ether into one that wasn't strictly aural, but haptic as well. I can imagine walking around at night while LEDs flash under your hat and light pulses out of your sleeves and the bottom of your coat, all induced by radio waves as you walk around. Sounds like fun, no?

Radio Light Show

Yeah, I know that makes no sense, but I don't care.

Today I was completely stuck, as you can see in the previous post, and I was basically just screwing around and trying to make my two machines interact with each other in some kind of crazy way. I decided to take one of the motors from my remote control car and hook it up where my speakers were supposed to be on the radio. To my surprise, I actually got a reaction, just not the one I had hoped for. The motor wouldn't turn with the music coming from the radio, but it would vibrate, which held some promise.

The next step was to hook up some LEDs and give that a shot. A single LED pulsed along with the music and looked pretty cool, so I constructed a small rail and soldered 5 LEDs to it, and then hooked the whole thing up. It was a truly serendipitous moment, because just as I started up the radio, Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" started to play, and the lights pulsed along to the unmistakable guitar riff at the start.

Fuckin' Awesome.



This is the very start of my new monster. Tomorrow I'm off for some 555 timers and I'm going to try and figure out how to control my monster's movement using radio waves. Could turn out to be very interesting indeed...

Ether Has a Strange Effect on Me

No, I'm not talking about the drug this time, I'm talking about that intangible liquid we all live and exist in. What is the Ether and what does it do? Who can sense or control it, and to what ends?

Who the hell knows?

I have to say that I am very confused right now. What is the ether? It is simultaneously nothing and everything, nowhere and everywhere. Now that we have that cleared up, how does one go about demonstrating such a thing? Should my monster do nothing? Should it swing in the breeze, or randomly flit about with no rhyme or reason? I suppose that it could, but it would still be far from explaining or demonstrating the ether.

Maybe I should start with what I know. It's not much, but I suppose it's a start. I've been reading Milutis' book entitled Ether: The Nothing that Connects Everything, and my mind has been blown on many separate, non-consecutive occasions. The book is full of incredible ideas, but it's density and mystery are getting to me.

What is ether? It goes by many names, including more popular ones like Mana and Chi, which if you are a gamer like me, you have heard many times before. This goes to show that the very idea of Ether, while not perceived in exactly the same way by everyone, is a seemingly ubiquitous idea all over the world and in many cultures.

In ancient Greece, the ether was defined as the area outside the "crystal". This crystal was believed to be a giant sphere in which the whole universe rested. The stars were nailed to this sphere, and whatever was outside of it was considered to be ether. Later on, as philosophers began to get more and more scientific, ether started to be considered one of the elements of the universe and became interchangeble with air as one of the four elements. Ether could neither be seen nor heard, and this is still true today, but it was a major factor in how we lived our everyday lives according to the greeks.

As we progess further into history, the ether remains an offshoot of the air, but since we discover that the air is oxygen, the ether shifts to become an intangible liquid essence that we exist in. Ben Franklin, Isaac Newton and Anton Mesmer are three scientists who explore the ether, but in much different ways. It is with Mesmer that I am the most interested, but the similarities between the approaches of all three men are eery. Even though Mesmer is denounced for his work with electricity and magnetism, his ideas about what the ether is conform with those of Ben Franklin and Newton. They believe that the Ether is a liquid medium that is susceptible to oscillations caused by thought and now, of course, electrical impulses and electromagnetivity.

The three are also similar in how they show their work to people. The ether is always tied to a great spectacle. Whether it's Ben Franklin's experiments with lightning, Newton's electromagnetic machines, or Mesmer's animal magnetism and cure-alls, all three used the ether to put on some kind of show as if it were magical. This mystery of the ether led to many strange and fantastic supernatural ideas, including seances, psychics, and hypnotism to achieve a higher perception or sixth sense.

Later on, the ether is almost disproved by Einstein and Hertz, after cultural milieu shifts and allows such experiments to go forth. Hertz's attempts to measure ether and Einstein's work on the theory of relativity render the ether debunked, but Marconi's radio transmissions open up a new kind of ether that lies in the electromagnetic spectrum, which is one of the places the ether still has currency today.

The internet is the new ether, with its communication through ones and zeros (luminiferous oscillations?) giving the world a single consciousness to connect through. The internet, radio, and earlier ideas of ether all have certain strands that keep come through in all its permutations.

Spectacle: The ether is almost always used to put on a show. Anton Mesmer, in particular, was proficient at using magnets and electricity to mystify and audience and create an air of awe and connectedness with the ether.

Communication: Even in ancient times, the greeks believed that the ether connected us all and that oscillations in this medium could have an affect on everyone connected to it.

Mystery: Ether has forever been a source of contention and speculation because of its intangible nature. It can be neither proven nor disproven, and its construction in our minds shift with new paradigms and cultural changes throughout the ages.

So there we have it... That's what I know so far... So how do I go about demonstrating ether? I have some ideas, but they are only shells of ideas and I can't seem to put the pieces together.

I've thought about using electromagnets and phosphorescents to create a "healing area" where people could go and be aware of the magnetism bombarding them, as well as an eerie, protoplasmic light that emanates from the machines. If the area was fogged, the people going through could be made aware of the very air they breathe and the medium through which the magnetism travels to them. Will it actually heal anyone? Sugar pills do it all the time...

Maybe I could make a show of it using radio waves that affect how my monster reacts. Perhaps a motion sensor could trigger a remote controlled sensor on my bot to make it scan the airwaves and reposition its antenna while it walks around a crowded area moving spastically due to the radio waves it receives. I like the idea, and so far it's the only one even near my reach, but I fear the idea will only demonstrate radio waves, and not the ethereal experience that I'm looking for at all.

I don't know what to do at all. Perhaps my third eye will open tonight as I sleep and some creative energy will flow from someone or somewhere, allowing me to show you the luminiferous oscillations going on all around you. Perhaps not, though, perhaps none of it is real in the first place.

Radio Controlled Radio?

Well, I sure as hell hope so.

A couple of days ago I started my vivisection of Skrash, a loud, skeletal fellow who rides around in a badass car. The first order of business was to crack open the controller and see what was inside. I was somewhat surprised at how complex it was, but I decided that it probably makes sense. My mistake was thinking it was more complex than the car itself.
What's this? A crystal oscillator again, I see. This one operates at 24 MHz, but the D10 is somewhat mystifying. If I had to guess, I would say that the D10 is for the variation in frequency or amplitude that will make sure that only this car runs on this controller. I'm sure if I opened up another character from this series, his crystal would have a different combination inscribed on it, but would still communicate at 24 MHz.
Gah, this is the speaker that's in the remote control. It's the reason this toy is so thoroughly annoying. No matter how far away the car is, when you press any button on the remote control, this speaker will produce a loud, annoying sound, such as squealing tires, guns firing, or Skrash laughing it up like an idiot.This part puzzled me a lot, actually. This is the headphone jack, and it's easily the most intense piece of electronics in the whole remote control, and yet it serves no purpose at all. Of the six wires that come from it, only two are necessary to keep the remote control working properly. The jack is simply to be used when the toy is in the box. This way, without having the power to the remote on and wasting batteries, customers can put their fingers inside the box and press the buttons and hear what sounds the remote makes. It even says in the instruction book to discard the cord because it's "not for use in play". Weird...These little rubber pads are siting on top of small switches that allow you to make the car move forward, backward, and side to side when you press them. It's fairly simple, really, especially in comparison with the vestigial headphone jack.

The next victim in my vivisection was the car itself. I thought that the car would be a lot simpler than the remote control, and of course I was completely wrong, because that's just how things work.

This is just one of the circuit boards on the actual car. There are two, and I certainly didn't expect that.

This is the whole shebang after the vivisection. As you can see there are two regular motors that I could pull out and one motor that has a casing with a load of gears inside. The nice thing about that gear box is that it should allow me to attack that piece to the tuner mechanism of my radio. Since it moves so slowly, I won't have to fiddle with any gear ratios or resistors along the motor's circuit to get it to move at the speed I want. The other motors, however, are a bit of a different story.

What's the next step? Monstrification. I will now combine my remote control car with my radio, to make a remote control radio. I already have the radio mounted on a board, now I just have to create some motor mounts for the motors I'm attaching to the radio dials. Hopefully this should do the trick, and if it does, videos shall be posted.

Skeletons and Labyrinths

This video is of my favourite little friend Skrash, pre-vivisection. I went out shopping today, looking for a 9.6V battery pack to put in this monster, but I found out that 9.6V battery packs cost upwards of $40, and O instead opted to cheap out and rig up two 9V batteries in series to get the job done. One 9V will make the hood open and shut, and will allow the wheels to turn, but it won't drive the big motor enough to get things moving. I finally found out that it was my amperage, not the voltage, that was the problem, and a quickly cobbled together parallel circuit was just the ticket to make this thing go. It works just fine now, and it's already a little monstrous, so I'm happy as is.

After my first little victory, I decided a change of pace was necessary. I started to do a little bit of research into my area of studies and related tidbits. I started out with radio and the history of Radio, and Guglielmo Marconi. I found a book about him as well, which is told like a story. It's a bit wordy for my purposes, but it's a nice contrast to the other technical stuff I found. In the book's description, it talks about how Marconi himself didn't even know how the machine worked at first, and that he had somehow managed to transmit signals through the "Ether".

I also found a book about the Ether, which is a little bit on the odd side. It talks about how ether is the "Superflux of the sky". When I figure out what in the blue hell that means, I'll let you know, but it certainly sounds cool, and I'm all for it.

I also found a couple of books that dealt with the anecdotal side of radio history. "Voices in the Purple Haze: Underground Radio and the Sixties" has insofar been an interesting read, if a little on the strange side. "Free Radio" is a book that I actually found while looking for "Voices in the Purple Haze", and I actually think it might be a bit more useful. In it, the author talks about the various kinds of pirate radios that have sprung up over the years and how the government is trying to regulate them.

"I Hid it Under the Sheets" is interesting, too, but it also has a more verbose and less to the point writing style. I did find it quite interesting on a personal note, though, because the author, Gerald Eskenazi, talks about his experiences as a child with the radio, and I have to say that it reminded me of my own childhood. The connection for me, however, wasn't to the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet, and Superman like it was for Eskenazi, it was for Link, Mario, and Samus Aran from the games I played as a kid.

In his intro, Eskenazi describes how he enjoyed the radio programs he listened to so much because, as a child, he had such a vivid imagination. He never saw any of the characters, but his imagination filled in the blanks while he listened and helped paint a picture in his mind. this is the same for me when i was young, playing my 8-bit games on the floor of my bedroom with my brothers. In the original Legend of Zelda, there's not much to look at in the labyrinths you enter, but in my mind, the blue bricks that formed the pixelated walls and floors were covered with fine dust, old vines, and smelled like my friend's musty basement. The bats that are in it look like a simplified batman logo in black, with big, blocky pixels, but in my mind's eye they were hideous flying creatures with four foot wing spans and glistening teeth, intent on ripping the flesh from an unexperienced adventurer's bones. The graphics were very simple, but that's never what I saw, because imagination played such a big part in the experience then. Now, when you play video games, each enemy and area is intricately detailed and spelled out for the player and almost no imagination is needed. I miss those old days, and I still find myself using emulators on my computer to recapture them.

In my day.... Oh, God, it's starting already....

An Unexpexted Hiatus

My three day absence is finally over. Why, you ask, was I gone for three days? Well, let's say two parts sickness and one part stupidity, and we're pretty much on the money. On Friday and Saturday I was sick as a dog with some kind of flu. I stayed at home and read things I had meant to read earlier and wallowed in self-pity until Sunday, when I finally felt good enough to get back to some meaningful work. Of course, after I had done some of said meaningful work, I toddled off home and forgot to bring my camera card with me, hence the one third stupidity portion of my absence.

It's OK, though, don't worry. I have the pictures now, and I will show them to you... I know you're excited.

Sunday started off rather groggily, as I wasn't fully over my flu, which I most certainly picked up from a certain Darth Vader mask purchased earlier at a certain frugal village. I had to revisit the Village of Values before I came into studio in order to pick up a shiny new radio to hack into bits.
My new radio is scarcely larger than your average pop bottle, and takes four double A batteries for its power source. Interestingly enough, I believe Superman himself works at the factory in China where this was assembled, because it was damn near impossible to get the four screws out of it. In the end I had to resort to using a thing screwdriver with a large pair of pliers clamped to it in order to get the bloody things out. Even with my new leverage advantage, I still had to lean all my weight on the radio and have someone hold the bottom so the radio itself wouldn't swivel in order to pry them loose, and I still stripped two of the four in doing so. I wasn't supposed to see the insides, I guess, but to hell with Superman, I always thought he was kind of a lame superhero anyway.

So what's inside of it? More of the same, really.The mechanisms all appear to be the same, only with fewer variable resistors (silver squares), and much smaller everything else. The volume knobs and tuner mechanism are almost identical, but I still haven't figured out what the coil of copper wire wrapped around a piece of iron do, although I have my guesses. I'll know for sure when I sever it from the rest of the board and observe the results, I suppose. Until then, it's a mystery, and mysteries are fun.
This is what it looks like when everything is separated from the case. I find it interesting that not only does the case have nothing to do with the shape of the actual pieces necessary to make it work, but that it also mimics the style of something that it's not. If you look at the front of the radio, it looks like it's a mini cassette player. It's like a vestigial piece of what a radio SHOULD be, which is pretty bloody strange if you ask me.

So what of my next vivisection? I'll have to take apart this lovely character, named Skrash.
Skrash is a character inside a remote control car I bought at Wal-Mart before I came into studio. It's a pretty sweet car, and I feel kind of bad taking it apart, but I must know how it works. What I do know is that I need a 9.6V battery pack to make it operate at a proper speed, but so far I've just jerry-rigged a 9V and made it go. It's good enough to make everything work, but it's not enough to power the huge motor in the back and make it actually move. All the other functions, like opening the hood of the car and playing its horribly annoying sound effects, work properly, but it doesn't move yet. I'll have a battery pack tomorrow, and I'll find out what makes ol' Skrash tick.
Aww, yeah. This is Skrash's ride... He's actually inside there, all tucked up. It must be very uncomfortable, but soon he'll be in a thousand pieces, so it's OK.