The First Ascender....Thanks Natedog

[soze]

Natedog definitely deserves this. His long running Ascender thread is where I go for info and the main reason why my second scale rig purchase was the K10 Ascender (even though it did get claimed by my son, but I have 2 more now).

He was also one of the first to welcome me on the forums as a new user and provided helpful links as I started getting familiar with the scale crawling addiction!

[BIGW0RM]

He totally deserves it. Nice gesture Rich.

[Browneye]

Definitely a stand-up guy.

[Natedog]

Thanks y'all!

Ascender #1 has arrived, thank you very much Rich, love it!

[smog]

What will become of it?

[Natedog]

Great question, I shoulda put that in my last post, lol!

It will get a good going through (keeping as close to original as possible) and kept as an occasional runner with mainly man cave room display!

[Browneye]

Cool.
Rich - send me your shipping address for a t-shirt.
We appreciate your support.

And now let's see what's new from Vaterra in the crawling scene!!

[rkj__]

Originally Posted by Browneye

And now let's see what's new from Vaterra in the crawling scene!!

LoL

[Yeti.stealth]

I would be interested in knowing more about prototypes and pre production testing Rich, is it possible for you to share anymore info?

I listened to a chat you had with someone on YouTube, and you spoke a little about what goes on behind the scenes, and shared a little info about how things like the Twin Hammers came to be, also saw some YT stuff from a guy bashing the Losi Baja Rey before it was released too, says he was an Horizon employee doing pre production testing.

And recently we have seen glimpses of the Axial 6x6 with split paint scheme at by the fire.

Just how much work goes into making our favourite toy trucks?!?!?

[Natedog]

Chris, thanks for getting Rich’s shirt to him, and yes we appreciate his support!


Dean, interesting and great questions!
Any tester or ex-employees signed non-disclosure agreements before anything was shared with them. They’re legally bound to keep this information private, doing otherwise is breach of confidentiality and in bad character.

[Yeti.stealth]

Yeah I figured there would be some secrecy for sure, but still had to ask, never know what Rich may be able to share about past testing and prototypes. I never expected anyone to discuss current or future stuff.

That No 001 Ascender is pretty damn awesome Nate! Gunna look good in the man cave!!! Has it got any odd parts on it, stuff that never made it to production?

[OSRC]

Very cool gesture and well deserved! Congrats Natedog!

I'd clean it and display it, exactly as it is. I don't know that I'd have the heart to run it.

[Natedog]

Rich may be able to fill in some information, I was answering in general and regarding the alleged ex-employee speaking out when he shouldn't have.

Thanks! Any running will be more careful than regular crawling for sure lol.

[j3ff3ry_j33p]

how cool is this?

congrats Natedog

[Rich Trujillo]

Originally Posted by Browneye

Cool.
Rich - send me your shipping address for a t-shirt.
We appreciate your support.

Just got back from the Horizon RC Fest and the package was on my desk, Thank you for the killer shirt!

Originally Posted by Natedog

Thanks y'all!

Ascender #1 has arrived, thank you very much Rich, love it!

Glad it arrived to its new home, enjoy

Originally Posted by Yeti.stealth

I would be interested in knowing more about prototypes and pre production testing Rich, is it possible for you to share anymore info?


Just how much work goes into making our favourite toy trucks?!?!?

Though i can't go into full details, 90% of the work is done behind a computer, from the engineer doing the actual design, to sharing specs with sales, purchasing, quality, marketing, legal, manuals, art, web, compliance, product support etc. making sure all teams have what they need for the project.

10% is the fun stuff, like actually testing the vehicles....but before we can do that, we usually get multiple samples of each part until they are "right" sometimes you have to test with various parts that don't meet our specs to at least get some running in. In addition to driving the vehicles as hard as we can, we also do drop testing.

Believe it or not, a lot of testing and work goes into these vehicles (regardless of what every key board warrior says), you just can't test for every single condition, driver or component out there....in addition, sometimes the factories don't follow a guideline and you end up with a part breaking or not fitting. It can be just as frustrating for us as it is for the consumer that spend their hard earned $.


Sorry if i didn't answer the question like you may have wanted but i at least wanted to give you a rough idea of what we do.


Thanks,
Rich

[GA Dawg]

How much time would you say there is in design and testing of a new platform?

[Yeti.stealth]

Thanks for answering Rich, I bet you guys all enjoy the fun 10% part of the process, also bet you are amazed at what the consumers are able to break after a product has been released, regardless of how hard you test them!

[Rich Trujillo]

Originally Posted by GA Dawg

How much time would you say there is in design and testing of a new platform?

It really varies from project to project. Depending on the platform and designer, it can be anywhere from 3 months to a year for a ground up design. Testing can take as little as 2 months to some projects have been over a year, depending on the challenges. I know it's not a precise answer as you could like but it really does depend on the design, the factory (some are better than others) and the platform.

Rich

[GA Dawg]

That answer was perfect. Thanks!

[wyd]

Natedog congrats on your new Ascender. Very cool thing indeed from Rich. Great information here and especially like the insight on new product testing. I remember doing some testing for STRC and Castle Creations. Was super fun to do testing on pre production products.