Wow, what a cool dad! 
Oh yeah.
I learned from him the love of āmaking stuff,ā and how to overcome āI donāt know how to do that, so I canāt.ā
When I was littleā¦
My dad sat in his lazy boy chair reading his news papaer while I was in the garage playing with matches next the gas can. 
I learned later in life how lucky I wasā¦ 
We blew stuff up together.
Like the time we made an oxy-acetylene powered mortar to shoot 1 liter bottles containing the cyalume lightstick chemical up in the air. (They had banned all āinterestingā fireworks in our city that year, so we made our own non-flammable aerial alternative.
Well, thatās not exactly a good idea to try.
Iāve heard that most properly modified starter motors(shroud removed, solenoid removed, bronze-phosphor bearings replaced with ball bearings, and a bucket of gear lubricant) wonāt even start turning until they get 20-25 amps (under no load!).
These guys may be torquey, but theyāre extreemly inefficient.
When youāve got a car battery that can put out 200-300 CCA, an 100A draw from a loaded starter isnāt going to be a problem.
If youāre thinking of using starter motors, youāll pretty much need to make your own speed controller.
Nah, I was exaggerating.
Although, if I did, I could use a Diehard, and then tow a generator in a trailer.
Hmā¦ if I do that, I might just as well build a Prius Bot.
More adventuresā¦
I decided to add tank-style treads to the bot, mainly because I wanted to gear things down a bit without too much hassle. I discovered Rat Shack is blowing out their Vex stuff, probably because they sold the brand to IFI.
Anyway, I had to mod the chassis some to do this, so I removed everything except the hard drive, which I carefully covered with low-tack masking tape to keep the chips out. I believe the way I had the drive mounted directly to the very thin aluminum sheeting at the bottom of the bot on that side exposed it to a bump during the course of messing with the frame, and when I got everything back together I discovered I had hosed the drive.
I do have a spare, but itās only 5 gigs. (The one I broke was a 40 gig drive.) It actually should be enough storage for what Iām doing, so Iāll probably go with it for now.
So now the first thing to do is take the time to build a decent mount for the HDD. Iāll probably also raise the motherboard up a little to make access easier, and create a cutout to make it simpler to attach a keyboard at those times I need one.
BTW, I did get the HB-25s from Jim hooked up before I decided to make the tread mod and they work great!
mic, id advise that you find someway of traction for the tracks, i have VEX and the treads are great and all but they are hard plastic and dont have too good traction on hardwood, tile, ect, ect
i saw somewhere on this foram but cant find it, i think this guy used cut up rubber o-rings and put them in place using loctite, ill try and find it for you
o yea, yes radio shack it having a sale, till june 3 i think, and everything is half off, its great you can get the track kit for 15 bucks (it is usually 30, i think)
here ya go mic, the link to the VEX with o-ring
lynxmotion.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=221&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
cant miss it, its the only pic on the page
Hey, thanks!
If I ever stop breaking things long enough to test drive it with the treads on, Iāll know how badly it slips. 
One thing I thought of trying is beads of RTV. Iāve had good luck making ātiresā on rims Iāve turned for my smaller bots by chucking the wheel in the lathe, spinning it slowly, and applying thin layers of RTV with something flexible like a Bondo squeegee. To get it to āskinā up quickly I just turned up the speed on the lathe a bit and put a halogen work light close by. Probably be easier to to do the tracks while stationary and just run a bead across each tread piece.
Or, if I wanted to waste a bunch of hours, I could rivet on rubber pads.
well that sound complicated