Awesome Tanks

A while back, Colin Furze built an unusual vehicle known as a Rhino tank. Its dome-shaped wheels were supposed to provide grip in the mud but ended up just getting him stuck. Fellow maker James Bruton took a stab at building a smaller, R/C version with electric motors in hopes that the added torque would improve his chances of success.

What’s better than a LEGO tank? A LEGO tank that can drive into the water, of course. Brick & Gear shows off the latest version of his Behemoth, a remote-controlled Technic vehicle powered by four motors – two for the tracks and two for water propulsion. After some bathtub testing, he drove it into a lake to see what it could do.

Engineer James Bruton has been experimenting with designs for a unique tank with treads that twist like a Möbius strip. After an earlier design that struggled with steering, his revised tank can bend at its center to drive around corners. It’s not a particularly practical design, but it sure is cool to watch in action.

ND Woodworking Art has created some amazing kid-scale vehicles for his son to ride in. This time, he spent 70 days building a mini tank with a steel frame, a wooden body, and motorized tracks. The design is based on a Swedish Army Stridsvagn 103. We’re not sure if carrying all those fuel cans on the exterior would be a good idea in a battle, though.

ViridianChase created this unique gaming computer that looks like a tank. Its case is built from metal with a digital camo pattern and tempered glass windows. It has 13 LED-lit fans, six of which simulate tread wheels. In addition to its fans, it packs NZXT Kraken 360X water cooling, an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, and an ASUS STRIX 6700XT graphics card.

While an all-terrain personal mobility device sounds like a good idea, we’re not sure that boots that drive like tanks are the best way to get around. Joel Creates shows off his design for a wearable off-road vehicle that’s totally impractical yet extraordinarily cool to see in action. They’d balance way better if they had longer tracks.

To follow up on his bicycle that runs on diagonally-mounted tracks instead of wheels, The Q is showing off another unusual bike design. This one rolls along the ground on tracks that lie flat on the surface. It looks more stable than the first design – but there’s more rolling resistance, so it needed a huge center gear to provide enough torque to move it.

GazR’s Extreme Brick Machines created this unusual LEGO Technic vehicle that gets around on eight tank-like continuous tracks. It’s driven by eight large Powered Up motors and has articulated outer tracks that help it to climb stairs and maneuver on uneven, rocky terrain.

Engineer James Bruton has built a variety of interesting robotic vehicles over the years, including an omnidirectional tank that moved around on three tracks. But that design had difficulty climbing uneven terrain, so he took his readers’ suggestions on the track design and made an improved version that’s a bit more agile.

Inventor Colin Furze has created some wild and wondrous things over the years, and his Rhino tank build looks awesome. But as you’ll see in the video for the hemispherical-wheeled tank, good looks don’t necessarily mean capability, and beauty is only skin deep.

GazR’s Extreme Brick Machines modified a LEGO treadmill they built and turned it into an extreme obstacle course for a remote-controlled tank. The treadmill is powered by four Powered Up L motors and includes a variety of hills, rollers, ramps, speed bumps, a turntable, and a spinning gate for the tank to navigate.

Vehicles that roll on tracks are generally built for their terrain-handling capabilities and not their speed. But rctestflight managed to achieve both with this machine, a direct-drive snowcat driven by electric skateboard motors. With its skinny tracks installed, the custom-built R/C vehicle can hit speeds up to 50 mph.

Got an old ATV and a moped sitting in your garage? You could take them to the junkyard, or you could do what Meanwhile in the Garage did and turn them into a tank for your kid. Of course, there was much more to it than rearranging parts. Quantum Tech HD boiled down the laborious 6-month project into a 20-minute video.

The Creative Channel shows us how he built a rugged little tank-like vehicle that rolls around on wheels wrapped in car tire treads, letting it roll along with ease on rough terrain. Controlling the motorized tank uses a pair of joysticks for engaging its treads in forward or reverse, and another for applying throttle.

These days, the military uses powerful computers and high-end graphics cards to simulate missions. But in the 1970s, one of the ways to simulate driving a tank was using a miniature city, a motion camera rig, and a remote screen that displayed the first-person perspective to the pilot. Tom Scott took this vintage sim for a ride.

The Prinoth Panther T14R is a unique dump truck that rides on tank treads and can spin its bed around 360º. Its design allows it to load and unload its contents in opposite directions without having to make a U-turn.

Engineer Eduard Luzyanin created this wild ride that combines a motorcycle and a tank. The Hamyak is a single-seat vehicle that’s propelled by a rolling track. It can reach speeds of 27mph, though, without suspension or steering, you’re probably going to want to go slower. EXROADmedia has video footage of this oddity in action.

You might think a remote-controlled model of a tank would be pretty underpowered. But from the looks of this video of a 1/6th-scale RC tank, it’s got enough torque to win a shoving contest with a grown man. The tank in question is the $5000+ Armortek Panther G in case you’d like to try it for yourself.

Despite its acceleration abilities, the Tesla Model S is a relativelt tame-looking car from the outside. But that all changed after The Real Life Guys got their hands on one. The German YouTubers took a Model S and converted it into a Model T by lifting it more than two feet and equipping it with tank tracks. Turn on subtitles.

Ivan Miranda built himself a massive 3D printer, so what better to use it for but to make a 3D-printed tank that’s big enough to sit inside of and drive? He’s been working on the tank for some time but only recently added the seat and control pedals. He plans on adding a turret and a cannon soon.

This impressive LEGO Technic vehicle uses 16 Mindstorms EV3 controllers and 48 motors to drive its tank-like treads along the ground. Its builder, Eric Steenstra says it can tow over 220 pounds, so he likes to use it to pull people in their wheelchairs.

GazR’s Extreme Brick Machines continues to impress us with their wild and inventive LEGO engineering. After showing off some unusual LEGO car designs, they took the same idea as their hubless car and applied it to tank treads. The vehicle has a truly unique look, is surprisingly agile, and capable of crawling over rough terrain.

A little while back, Mr. Michal showed off a sweet mini artillery truck he built that fires ball bearings. Now watch the chaos that ensues as that truck does battle alongside a similarly-equipped tank on a field filled with plastic army men and toy tanks in his action short film “Battlefield 2022.”