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Grumpy pants

Which kit for a 10 Year Old?

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My sons birthday was yesterday. He turned 7. He’s been driving RC Cars since he was 3 lol.. yes I got him started early.

His first car was a TT02-S and second which he got 2 years ago was a RC4WD Gelande crawler. 

Anyhow, during lock down I wanted to get him a buggy .. like most boys he wants to jump things. So I figured a Hornet would suffice but they were out of stock and the idea went dormant. A few days ago my wife told me that he was speaking about his birthday and expecting a buggy! At dinner I brought up the subject and offered alternatives and he was adamant about having a buggy.

So after dinner I went on to Tower Hobbies and saw that it was now available. Then I remembered by buddy sending me an article about the Neo Buggy, so I looked at that and it was actually less than the Hornet. ($120 vs $145) I read up on it here and found out it was fragile. I also noticed that it didn’t come with bearings and oil filled dampers.. so I would end up spending an additional $40-50 to improve it. 
So I took a step back and decided to shop other brands.. eg Associated, Kyosho, Traxxas, Carisma, Vatera, MST Etc. All were either too much money, cheap looking or goofy.  


I was on Kyosho’s site about to give up, when I scrolled down and did double check to see if I was seeing a misprint.. nope I was not!! Kyosho Ultimate RB7 $219!!!! 🤩

Sure it’s a lot of car for a 7, 10 or 12 year olds. Yet its designed for racing and handle big jumps. So this is the route I took. 
 

Now Tamiya kits do come with motor and ESC.. so not the most feasible route for everyone.. in my case I have plenty of extra electronics! 

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On 10/3/2020 at 9:16 AM, Raman36 said:

My sons birthday was yesterday. He turned 7. He’s been driving RC Cars since he was 3 lol.. yes I got him started early.

His first car was a TT02-S and second which he got 2 years ago was a RC4WD Gelande crawler. 

Anyhow, during lock down I wanted to get him a buggy .. like most boys he wants to jump things. So I figured a Hornet would suffice but they were out of stock and the idea went dormant. A few days ago my wife told me that he was speaking about his birthday and expecting a buggy! At dinner I brought up the subject and offered alternatives and he was adamant about having a buggy.

So after dinner I went on to Tower Hobbies and saw that it was now available. Then I remembered by buddy sending me an article about the Neo Buggy, so I looked at that and it was actually less than the Hornet. ($120 vs $145) I read up on it here and found out it was fragile. I also noticed that it didn’t come with bearings and oil filled dampers.. so I would end up spending an additional $40-50 to improve it. 
So I took a step back and decided to shop other brands.. eg Associated, Kyosho, Traxxas, Carisma, Vatera, MST Etc. All were either too much money, cheap looking or goofy.  


I was on Kyosho’s site about to give up, when I scrolled down and did double check to see if I was seeing a misprint.. nope I was not!! Kyosho Ultimate RB7 $219!!!! 🤩

Sure it’s a lot of car for a 7, 10 or 12 year olds. Yet its designed for racing and handle big jumps. So this is the route I took. 
 

Now Tamiya kits do come with motor and ESC.. so not the most feasible route for everyone.. in my case I have plenty of extra electronics! 

Thats a great result! The race buggies are a good option for kids, they are so durable. Do you have anywhere to race it? My 7yo took his Ae B6D to an onroad meet and won the kids class with it, he was happy and it means I can go more.

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36 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Thats a great result! The race buggies are a good option for kids, they are so durable. Do you have anywhere to race it? My 7yo took his Ae B6D to an onroad meet and won the kids class with it, he was happy and it means I can go more.

Sounds like the perfect reason to upgrade your race cars, passing on your older ones to your son. Wife’s love it when you do stuff for the kids. Worthy of infinite brownie points 👍🏻

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2 minutes ago, Re-Bugged said:

Sounds like the perfect reason to upgrade your race cars, passing on your older ones to your son. Wife’s love it when you do stuff for the kids. Worthy of infinite brownie points 👍🏻

Our offroad racers are similar, he has a HB D413 and I have the D418 but we both have B6D. Oh and electronics, he gets my old ones. Onroad is a different story though, he has a TT02 and F103, if we keep going then next year he'll probably get a 21.5T touring car, I could give him my TA07 RS7 and get a new one, or build a TA07 out of parts which will cost less than half the price of a TA07 Pro. My wife is near maxxed out on RC cars I think, last count there are 19...

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25 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

 My wife is near maxxed out on RC cars I think, last count there are 19...

Officially that she knows of...

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7 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Thats a great result! The race buggies are a good option for kids, they are so durable. Do you have anywhere to race it? My 7yo took his Ae B6D to an onroad meet and won the kids class with it, he was happy and it means I can go more.

We do have a very nice indoor carpet facility.  We usually go there for on-road days. Off-road doesn’t appeal to me as I’m not a particular fan of the jumping space ships.. I like scale looking cars, if they ever decide to have a scale class, with some old school buggies, then I’d be interested.

With the RB7 however will have to see. If my sons interest peaks in competing then will have to take him there in off road days. 

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12 hours ago, Raman36 said:

We do have a very nice indoor carpet facility.  We usually go there for on-road days. Off-road doesn’t appeal to me as I’m not a particular fan of the jumping space ships.. I like scale looking cars, if they ever decide to have a scale class, with some old school buggies, then I’d be interested.

With the RB7 however will have to see. If my sons interest peaks in competing then will have to take him there in off road days. 

I feel desire to have something scale looking  on my but off-road was what sparked the short course truck craze a few years back. 

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The lack of scale has always been my struggle with modern buggies.

I painted the RB7 body over the weekend and that just reinforced my struggle.. I kept looking at it saying.. what is it? 🤔 

But I remind myself that it’s not for me. 

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just to add my tuppence - my initial reaction was a Monster Beetle or Blackfoot, as that's what I really wanted as a kid. I saved and got a Blackfoot as my first proper RC and I loved it.

Then I remembered my mate who also loved RC stuff thought it the Blackfoot looked cool, but was boring because it was slow, and he therefore bought a Schumacher Cat.

Fast forward thir....some years :blink: I was round his place last weekend. He has 2 boys, one is 14, the other 11. Both of them have been brought up on healthy diets of RC stuff. The youngest is 100% into indoor racing, the older one likes crawlers, neither of which are fields of RC my mate pushed them towards. 

So, what we all think would be great is probably completely irrelevant. Your nephew may love touring cars, or F1, LeMan or dune buggies, monster trucks or crazy looking things. The best way to find out what he likes (and hopefully will build lots more interest in the hobby) is to ask him.

I'd also agree with the comment about not worrying too much about the complexity of the build. You mentioned his dad would hopefully be involved, so any difficulty should be a means of building a shared interest.

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only thing i would say is if the kit is for a little guy a modern track offroad buggy is gonna get stuck offroad. 

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Monster trucks are where his preference lies so a Blackfoot style truck would tick that box.

I’ve been keeping any eye out for a decent WT01, but I think I’ll ultimately end up buying a NIB Madbull or gifting him the NIB Lunchbox I bought in May for myself 👍

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The Hornet is great - easy to build, looks amazing and is super fun to drive.

However, it has a showstopper design flaw in the battery slider on the underside of the car. Go over bumps and jumps at speed and it pops off and the battery is dragged behind the car which is disappointing.

Yes there are mods you can do/get but they are not simple and can cost more money if you've not done any research or D.I.Y. minded.

A more robust car for kids IMO is the Lunchbox - this has been a great runner for the last six months for my two. The stock motor gives it really cool wheelies.

I'd also consider a DT-02 2WD like the Sand Viper or a Neo-scorcher for low budget fun if the buggy look and feel is important.

 

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On 10/2/2020 at 9:16 PM, Raman36 said:

Sure it’s a lot of car for a 7, 10 or 12 year olds. Yet its designed for racing and handle big jumps. So this is the route I took. 

My mates lad is 9, he's been racing for years, beating me for 2 years (and now annoyingly ,giving me advice on lines and set up......😳). He's driving a B64 with a 6t (in 4wd) and currently one of the top drivers in Scotland.

Like they say, age is just a number, it's experience more than anything.

Red/blue car

 

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On 10/14/2020 at 8:23 AM, Grumpy pants said:

Monster trucks are where his preference lies so a Blackfoot style truck would tick that box.

I’ve been keeping any eye out for a decent WT01, but I think I’ll ultimately end up buying a NIB Madbull or gifting him the NIB Lunchbox I bought in May for myself 👍

I have a hardly used Mad Bull that I am about to sell if you are interested?

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One thing I think may be worth considering is hop-up ability. For a very large proportion of us, the real fun and enjoyment of this hobby comes from buying a set of nice alloy or carbon parts for a model we've got and gradually upgrading it, fiddling with camber, damper rates, gearing, adding lights etc. If anything, that's what keeps us interested - if everything was pre-built and couldn't be modified we'd get bored of it pretty quickly, and this probably applies 5x more with a kid. So my suggestion would be, if monster trucks are his thing, go with the Lunchie. There are hundreds of options out there for it, wheels, tyres, shocks, alloy parts, lights, scale parts, he can really make it his own, so it should have the most long term appeal.

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