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Page 1 of 2  Although it might seem a bit cheap and nasty, the USB Rocket Launcher form ‘Dream Cheeky’ is so much fun it should be banned – and I’m sure in schools and offices across the country it will be.
The USB Missile launcher (selling online for AU$59) is a rather compact device that will fit nicely on your desktop (I would say put it on top of your monitor – but only if you have a CRT, which no one does) and is completely powered and operated via the USB port, so no extra power packs or control panels are necessary. Its compliment of armaments include 3 x soft foam ‘missiles’ with a claimed effective combat range of around 10 feet (about 3 meters). However when testing in our own personal firing range (i.e. the office), we found they could be effective at distances up to and including 7 meters (almost 23 feet) with remarkable accuracy. Dream Cheeky USB Missile Launcher  Don’t be afraid of hurting someone in the office with a well placed shot though, as the projectiles would have to weigh all of about 1 or 2 grams (0.07 of an ounce). So they’re not going to carry enough momentum to inflict any pain or injury, but just enough to be really annoying to those you hit, and that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? If no-one of particular importance is around to aim at, there is a sizeable paper bullseye target included which you can hang on your wall or cubicle partition and shoot at to your heart’s content. Paper Target  The launcher is controlled by a very simple (and extremely poorly written) piece of windows based software. The software will help you move the launcher left and right on a full 360 degree rotation, as well as the level of elevation, so shooting is more like artillery than missiles, but maybe I’m just being picky on the terminology. The software is, well, awful quite frankly, some of the worst I’ve ever seen for any product in a long long time. Firstly the graphical box for the software is about twice the size it needs to be with a large area of grey existing around the GUI for no apparent reason, and secondly, none of the buttons actually work... well they do, but the spot where you have to click the mouse is about an inch away from where its picture is (see picture). Thankfully it can be controlled via the keyboard with the arrow keys and fired with the spacebar, this way works flawlessly. The Control Software  There a targeting cursor situated on an X and Y axis grid (with X and Y the wrong way round *sigh*), however this cursor is completely useless. The cursor moves completely from one side of the screen to the other, while the device itself has only rotated about 45 degrees. Basically the dot/cursor will move around the screen, but it doesn’t relate to the device at all. When firing the device it simply rotates the firing order in a clockwise direction whether there’s a missile on the end of the barb or not, so it’s best to keep it fully loaded if possible. The device fires by making quite a lot of noise, presumably pulling back a small piston of sorts, and releasing it suddenly which pushes a small shot of air out the barbs, enough to propel the missile a good 20 feet or more according to our tests. Hours of fun to be had, no matter how old you are. Nice and Compact 
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