The WiiKart, A Wireless Go Kart

Whoops… Looks like we covered this already. My mistake.

In case the name didn’t tip you off, this fun little kart was inspired by MarioKart. The goal was to build a functional go kart that could be controlled via the Nintendo Wiimote. They did a pretty good job and kept it fairly simple too. They designed a frame that vaguely mimics the shape of the carts in the game. The steering is handled by a 4″ stroke linear actuator. This was initially hooked directly to the tie-rod, but they found it to be too slow. Their solution was to put a lever in between the two with a 1to 3 ratio. This made everything much snappier.

Though they were capable of implementing PWM on the motors in their hardware, they opted to stick with full on, full off because of the push-button nature of the controller. The connection and communication are handled with an Arduino and they don’t mention what bluetooth module they use.

You can see in the video below it is fairly responsive and has more than enough power to lug a passenger over some varied terrain.

15 thoughts on “The WiiKart, A Wireless Go Kart

  1. “They did a pretty good job and kept it fairly simple too”

    Using a wiimote is far from keeping it simple, it is adding latency and complexity and more points for possible failure. It’s a cool POC, but extremely unpractical.

    1. So that’s why I have to turn off my phone… And here I thought fly-by-wire(less) was some magic mumbo jumbo to keep me from texting.

      But anywho, does it power slides like originals?

  2. I am doing a project with an Arduino UNO, USB dongle Rocketfish 2.1, Wiimote and RC car. I am no good at programming and need to know how to write the code? I do not know how to put the different libraries together. I mean there is code for the Wii and the USB and then there is the code for the RC car to get it to work. I think I have to put them into one sketch, but not sure how to do this.
    ..

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