Computer Controlled R/C Vehicle
I have decided to start a new column called Make It Monday. These posts will highlight some cool tech projects that you can do yourself. Some will be relatively easy while others will be more on the rocket scientist level with soldering and building circuit board required. None the less, they promise to be interesting!
The very first Make It Monday project is a computer controlled remote control vehicle. This is something that I have been wanting to do for some time. The closest I ever got to this was buying some USB to servo devices which are still in their plastic packages.
Be warned that this is not for the faint of heart or those who fear a soldering iron. But, you can purchase a kit from the author of the article if you would like the process to go a bit quicker.
Let me know if any of you attempt this or have in the past and what some of your results have been.
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One Response to “Computer Controlled R/C Vehicle”
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Mark Says:
March 13th, 2007 at 10:37 amI’ve done this before using a small (about 4″) Tyco RC Durango. I wired the controller to the parallel port and put up a webcam so that people could see it. I wrote a simple CGI app in VB to let visitors ‘drive’ the car around a small table with sides on it so the car wouldn’t drive over the edges.
Each morning I’d put in fresh rechargeable batteries and check a log file to see how much activity and who (IP only) was using the car. I had roughly 300-400 hits per day and sometimes the car was on the floor. I’d put tennis balls and other goodies on the table for people to push around just to make it more interesting.It was a very cool project and was pretty cheap to setup. I ran the car for about 4 months before taking it down.
Here’s the static site with piccies and a bit more info.
http://members.shaw.ca/mvoorberg/Please forgive the yucky site, it was *years* ago!
-Mark
