Hacked RC Car Sent To Soldier In Afghanistan Saved Lives

This is one of the coolest hacks I have ever heard of. A guy named Ernie Fessenden built a cool RC truck to send to his brother serving in Afghanistan named Sergeant Chris Fessenden. Ernie built the hacked RC truck out of an off the shelf Traxxis Stampede RC truck combined with a smallish camera mounted to the hood of the truck.

One of the things that the soldiers in Afghanistan have to watch out for are hidden roadside bombs designs to explode and destroy the vehicles driving by and to kill soldiers. The camera on the hacked RC truck shoots video back to a small gun mounted LCD. Sgt. Fessenden made use of the truck to keep him and his team safe when something on the road didn't look right.

The Sergeant sent the little truck to check out something that was suspect on the side of the road. What the RC truck was checking out turned out to be a roadside bomb. The RC toy set the bomb off and none of the soldiers in the truck were harmed. Ernie is already working on a replacement truck to be sent to his brother to keep him safe in the future.

[via Hackaday]