A group of Russian volunteers is building ground robotswhich can be used for suicide attacks, transporting supplies or deploying smoke screens, joining hoverboardspersonal transportation devices also known as self-balancing scooters or kick scooters.
Last May, the group Dva Mayora, which can be translated as ‘Two Senior Officers’, released an initiative for people to donate their old hoverboardsaccording to Interesting Engineering. These devices are usually moved to 12 kilometers per hour and have an autonomy of 3 hours with a single charge of its battery. They are available from just over 100 euros new and for less second-hand.
Videos posted by Dva Mayora show technicians combining two hoverboards into a four-wheeled machine they have dubbed ‘the combat cockroach’. Also that it is able to cross various types of terrainincluding tall grass, and deploy a smoke bomb the size of an anti-tank mine, indicating both defensive and offensive capability.
A Russian UGV called “Two Majors”, named after an infamous Telegram channel that is providing funding.
Built on two hoverboards, it can carry over 100kg, giving it considerable potential as a kamikaze.
The mine it is carrying is a UDSh smoke bomb, now used for smokescreens. pic.twitter.com/2Ictfp60VB— Roy🇨🇦 (@GrandpaRoy2) June 15, 2024
In a video posted on July 4, the group showed finished robots ready to be shipped and described them as kamikazesassuring that there was more in stock and appealing to donors to send more hoverboards.
In the same Russian workshop, double-hoverboard ground kamikazes are quickly built in quantity, while a single large unmanned hauling vehicle is “labor-intensive.”
To be relevant in this vast war, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are required in large numbers. https://t.co/eWoOGFhJZgpic.twitter.com/rkxeff2Lkt— Roy🇨🇦 (@GrandpaRoy2) July 4, 2024
Dva Mayora is not the first group to turn to hoverboards as a robotic platform. There are communities of hoverboard hackers who They share designs online for use as delivery robots and in other projectsA typical design uses two hoverboards, a cheap processor like a Raspberry Pi with open source software, a radio controller, and a body made of metal and 3D-printed plastic.
The difference is that such devices have not been used as unmanned ground vehicles, or UGVs, in warfare. Military UGVs are not only larger and more capable, but they are also much more expensive.Ukraine operates a few supplied by its allies, but these cost around one million dollars eachRussia has equally advanced machines, but there is no evidence of their presence in Ukraine, perhaps because of the high cost. Interest seems to have moved to smaller machines built in garages, which are more expendable.
The UGV hoverboard takes this economy of means to the extreme. This simple design doesn’t appear to have a camera, but It is remotely controlledpossibly using a drone’s camera from the air. The makers say it can be used from 2 kilometers away and can carry up to 100 kilogramsWhile military robots take years to develop, this one was deployed in weeks and probably cost a few hundred euros per unit.