Seeing Things

There's something about being a scraphound - a term I borrow from Cory Doctrow - where you see potential in things, cast offs and detritus.
Sometimes it's pretty obvious - like a big neon sign flashing on and off in the heavens - " This toy truck has wheels perfectly gaged for my railroad. I see a railtruck here". Sometimes it's less obvious - "This dead VCR has some very cool buttons and a nice pancake motor here... lets throw it on the scrap pile for use sometime in the near future". And somedays it's just " how long have I had these four broken VCR's for? Uhhhh. Time to clean house".
This one was one of those ones that lept on me like a jagular from a tree. Robot Chassis. definitely a robot chassis. Look at it - independent wheel drive, rechargeable battery, input socket for commands, wireless radio remote for crying out loud... found it at a neighbours garage sale for $25. It powers up, but it's either got some kind of code lock on it or it's dead. At any rate, even with that I'm sure I can re-jig the motors with some kind of controller. It's all about potential....
Hmmm.... now I'm thinking chainsaw and flamethrower.... you know, for when the zombie apocalypse comes? Awesome