The Lonely Geek

When I was growing up I had quite a bit of stuff most kids wouldn’t dream of getting, like almost every Star Wars toy you could imagine. I also had the privilege of owning a Big Trak, a $40 toy that was for many the first affordable “robot” they were exposed to. Remarkably, probably due to the design acumen of Milton Bradley, the measurements when compared to 3 1/2″ action figures was astounding, and the plastic crunch the wheels made when trampling over hordes of Stormtroopers was not altogether disquieting either!!! Long did I dream of a way to marry the two products together so that my fearless troops of Rebel soldiers (or Stormtroopers, depending on my mood…) could ride atop this mechanical monster and deal rolling death to the enemy hordes, or stand up to the awesome might of the AT-AT walker, heavily armed and ready for high combat (usually the ^&%$ thing just rolled into the legs and had a 50/50 chance of tripping it up, but I digress…), all of course while rolling in fresh supplies on its Transport Trailer (that thing used to $%^& me off greatly. It NEVER dumped its cargo when I wanted to, it usually just sat behind the Big Trak and whined…).

Why do I mention this now? I just had a vivid dream of those days and, being the collector that I am now, positively KNOW that I can retrofit my Big Trak (or preferrably buy a used one off eBay…) and Transport to operate via R/C. Doing this would allow me to gut the innards like the computer board, 90% of the wiring, and part of the plastic housing, and let me fashion my very own cockpit (seats at least two), troop bay in the back (where the computer board and keypad sits…), and a rotating gun turret (atop the Big Trak where the circular hatch would be…). Then I would install the motor and run a set of treads to the back wheels from the middle wheels to allow for greater traction (I’d probably keep the front wheels free-floating, kind of like a half-track, since putting too much torque on the plastic frame invites destruction!!!). Then I could hook up a remote relay to the “photon cannon” at the front of the B.T. and be able to trigger it to shoot out blinding rays of scintillating light at my foes. I might even get one of those pinhole remote spycams and mount the bugger inside the nose for a nice view of the battlefield.

Let’s see:

1: Motor replacement = check.
2: Cockpit = check.
3: Troop bay or extra cargo bay = check.
4: Gun turret = check.
5: Traction-control = check.
6: R/C functionality = check.

Now I’d strip all decalling and repaint the chassis and body gloss black (or silver, haven’t decided on that yet…), then badge it up with Rebel or Imperial insignias (probably Imperial, although the Rebel Alliance doesn’t have all the cool ground attack stuff like the Clone Army or Imperial Guard does…). Then, I could cut two retangular holes in the front of the tank, cover them with blue filter (from two sets of x-ray shades…), and add interior lighting to the cockpit to simulate U/V headlights.

Yeah, that’d just about do it….