A couple of years back, I was pretty infatuated with remote controlled cars and enjoyed modifying my Mini-Z racer by Kyosho. The only problem was that the car was meant for indoor racing and I had very few opportunities to drive it (my house is small). I then turned to what can be defined as “micro” r/c cars like the BitChar-G by Tomy and the Digi-Q by Takara. What was great about these little cars were that you could easily race them on a table top and it was fairly easy to design your own race course (like with Lego!). Plus, there were customizable motors, gears and tires to help improve the performance of these little babies! But as the cars got popular, more companies were entering the market and it was completely flooded. I decided to give them to my little cousin to play with and I basically never kept up with the cars afterwards.

Recently, I was shopping at Pacific Mall and I spotted the newest incarnation of micro r/c cars called Q-Steer. Produced by Takara Tomy (the two companies merged), the cars about the same size as the old Digi-Q cars and they utilize the same infrared signals. Here is a promotional video for the Q-Steer:

As you can see, there have been many changes made…such as the remote is A LOT smaller than before and the car no longer recharged using the remote, but rather use LR44 watch batteries to power them (you need for LR44 in total - 2 for the car and 2 for the remote). The best reason for the switch to watch batteries are because it combats problems with battery leakage and long charging times (and short play times). The cars come in 4 Bands (A, B, C and D), which means that 4 cars can race simultaneously. Check out the video below of people racing their Q-Steers on a Lego track.

Also, you can apparently go onto the Takara Tomy website and find out how you can control your Q-Steer car via your IR enabled cellphone! Like the cars that preceeded them, you can change the gear ratios, motors, tires and the shell of the car…so as to have your own custom Q-Steer racer. I unfortunately haven’t found a Q-Steer version of my car (Mazda 3), but I’ll keep my eyes out for one. =)

-Stephen