Re: Danville [TANKS]

[Frank Pittelli <frank-at-rctankcombat.com>]

MHayes wrote:
> How did Danville go?

In a word: Fantastic!!!

We had 8 members of the hobby attending, with plenty of vehicles and 
technology to show off.  James Miller and Steve Tyng showed everyone 
their new vehicles under construction and answered any and all questions 
about the systems.

We set up a TV and played battle video all day long, which opened a few 
eyes of the spectators.  We also set up a steering course with orange 
cones and allowed kids and adults to drive a  Stuart and the UN Support 
Vehicle around the course.  About 80-100 people ran the course over the 
two days.

But, the best part was the firing range.  We set up the Navarone Gun 
with 7 targets down-range and gave everyone 10 shots to hit 6 of the 
targets (the 7th was an ambulance ... penalty for hitting that).  We had 
over 200 kids, parents and grand-parents giving that a try, shooting 
well over 2000 rounds (some kids took multiple turns) through the virgin 
Navarone barrel.  We kept track of the time for perfect scores, with the 
fastest official time of 13 seconds.  (Another kid did it in 9 seconds, 
but that was his second time on the gun.)

The best part about the firing range was the sound of the gun when it 
fired without a paintball in the chamber.  It literally "boooooomed" and 
then echoed around the building we were in.  Whenever we wanted to 
attract a crowd to our area, we simply pressed the button a couple times 
and all heads turned (even those of the 1/16 scale guys playing LED tag 
with each other!!!)  At one point, we probably had at least 30 people 
standing around watching and cheering the action, with up to 10 kids 
standing in line at any given time.  Lots of action, lots of fun and 
lots of happy spectators.

On Sunday morning, we had some time to ourselves, so we held our own 
steering and shooting contest.  We drove our own tanks around the 
steering course, then we each drove the UN vehicle around the course and 
then average the score.  After that winner was decided, we moved over to 
the firing range and took one turn each at that.  Unfortunately, the 
scores are sitting at home on my desk, so you'll have to wait for the 
results :-)

Out of the 500+ people who came by the booth, we probably got 10 people 
interested in looking further into the hobby and possibly 2 guys who 
will actually participate one day.  That's a pretty good return on 
investment.

        Frank P.