Racing Wheel Guided R/C Car With Video Feed

rc_car

Instructables user [Kaeru no Ojisan] enjoys constructing R/C kit cars and wanted to build one that could be driven using a PC racing wheel he had on hand. Not satisfied with simply guiding it with the racing wheel, he added a web cam to the car so that he can monitor its location from the comfort of his desk chair.

The car is loaded down with all sorts of electronics to get the job done, requiring four separate battery packs to keep them online. An Arduino controls the motor and the steering servos, receiving its commands wirelessly via a Bluetooth add-on. The camera connects to a USB to Ethernet converter, which enables the car’s video feed to be transmitted via the onboard wireless router.

The racing wheel interface seems to work just fine, though we don’t doubt that the whole setup can be easily simplified, reducing both weight and battery count. While [Kaeru no Ojisan] says that the car is in its concept stages and there are a few bugs to work out, we think it’s a good start.

Stick around to see a quick video of the car in testing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idqzfV-16yo

12 thoughts on “Racing Wheel Guided R/C Car With Video Feed

  1. Great little project, but I think it’s been done before. At least it looks like it would’ve. There have been many slow nights where I think to myself “Camera on a R/C car”. But this needs a rotating camera. Or maybe a little mirror system to look behind (a small mirror could be moved in front of the camera and then reflect to other small mirrors to eventually see behind the camera)

  2. Been done before, in fact we had a “video game” build here where they even built the track!

    Now, get this to work across the country…. I’d love to drive a RC car around the Cali Office.

  3. Nobody’s mentioned force feedback yet but, with some feedback from the car’s steering servos, shouldn’t something like that be possible? That would be *way* cool.

  4. yeah,and on “Prototype This” did it in an early episode with real cars on a smash em up derby track for a mind controlled road rage test.

    still good to see it being done almost from scratch.

  5. This is pretty cool. It’s fun to see the many unique ways that Radio Control Car Enthusiast approach this concept. This approach reminds me of the r/c coin ops at your average amusement park. I give him props for not taking the easy way out by purchasing the readily available items that would make it easier. I may take some time out and try my hand at making a DIY radio control car also, with a camera of course.

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