Walkthrough - Autonomous RC Car using Arduino ADK

Buy a Vex Motor Controller

Buy an Arduino ADK:

A basic walkthrough of the first stage of my Autonomous RC Car. No soldering!

I started with the idea from this website:

Then I added an IR Sensor to the front of the car for basic collision avoidance. The purpose of this video is to show how you don't need to be an electrical engineer or a perfectionist to have fun with Arduino.

You can see in the video that I have successfully hacked the RC car's existing drive, steering and power system by just taking the plastic body off.

Parts:
New Bright Interceptor RC Car
Arduino(I used and Arduino ADK but any Arduino will do)
Sharp IR Sensor
Bread board
Jumper wires
Vex Motor Controller 29(x2)
Power source for Arduino (I used a battery pack of AAA batteries.)

Steps:
1. Remove RC car body
2. Find and unhook drive and steering motor connectors
3. Plug two wire side of Vex Motor Controller into each motor connectors
4. Plug three wire side of each Vex Motor Controller into breadboard
5. Connect PWM wire(white) of each Vex Motor Controller to a PWM on the Arduino
6. Connect IR Sensor's output pin (leftmost when you look into its "eyes") to Arduino analog in.
7. Use jumper wires to connect some rails on the breadboard to handle 6v power from the RC Car's battery
8. Wedge the jumper wires somewhere in the contacts for the RC Car's battery underneath.
9. Power the IR Sensor using the Arduino's 5.5v and power the drive motors using 6v lines you created from the RC Car battery.
10. Power the Arduino (I plugged a battery pack into the VCC pin)
10. Write the code.

If you found this video helpful, tips are appreciated

Dogecoin: D5robAZySKbhKm7hbyMkD1pEK1LBuvB1M6

[abencomo]

Nice work!  We built a similar project.  However, we used an IOIO board instead to control the vehicle autonomously. Here is the result: