[stuart] wanted a more intuitive way to control his rover platform than the software solution he had been using. He settled on using a Playstation controller with an AVR to operate the rover wirelessly. He found a couple references for talking to the controller using SPI on a PIC and adapted that for his ATMega88. The code is available on his site. He removed the rumble motors from the controller and stuffed the chip plus the transmitter package inside. The Linx TX/RX pair are mounted to pluggable boards so he can use them on other projects. A video of the tank in motion is after the jump.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL89b-lupu8]
Yes!!! Dude I was waiting for this. Way to go!
Please kill the spam (and the spammer)
Stupid douche couldn’t even spam right the first time.
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Nice work on this!
Looks like it has very fine control and not much latency if any.
Now for the video camera… :)
(two great things that go great together)
Great work – and thanks for the link to the PS2 info – I’ve been looking for the protocol for button pressures for ages.
when someone says something like “why would you waste your time and money on a hack like this, when you can buy it in the store for next to nothing?!” I usually defend the hacker.. reproducing a commercial product with home brew parts `for the love of the hack` is generally something i support.
but, im getting tired of seeing the same old hat. Ok, so he ported the code from pic to avr. thats.. um.. fantastic. but beyond that, we have yet another rc tank. im sick of rc tanks. certainly an ellaborate build, but it amounts to nothing more than an rc tank. no offense, but its just old.
now, if that rc tank remembered all your commands, and then replayed them repeatedly after you press the start button, then there is something interesting.
honestly, even tele-presence is getting tired.
I lost interest in battlebots for much the same reason. Granted, everyone (including me) likes sparks and mayham. but the lack of a:inginuity and b:autonomy made it booring after a season or two.
Even the definition of the word has become convoluted. (not that the builder claimed to have made a robot, or bot, but just because im on the topic..) while watching mythbusters, I noticed how often they refered to a mechanical contraption to perform a simple task as a `bot`. “we will build a `bot` to fire golf balls at a consistant speed and angle, thus eliminating the human element!” This ‘bot’ was simply an air cylender attached to a firing tube with a valve between them. there was no velocity sensors, no automated valve release, no intelligence built in (not that such device should need one.. the point is, its in no way a bot, it is simply a mechanical device.)
If this is our new definition of a bot, then I live in a bot, my room is kept warm and cool by a bot, I watch a bot when I need entertainment, and I ride various bot devices to work. After walking for two years in the same bots, its time to buy new bots at the shoestore. the bot that tells the time for me recently stoped, and the bot down on the corner was out of cola this morning. thus, I am a bit agitated. not to mention, the knob-bot on my shower has come loose. I need to find my screwdriving bot so that I can fix it.
I vote that Hack-a-day do more reports and individual bot profiles on NEXT champions etc. Junior high and highschool kids are doing more interesting things in the bot world than most adults. push one button, and pray you wrote good code. I want to see a lot more profiles on these kids, how they planned and accomplished the competition goals, and what their bot and code looks like.
Hell of a lot more interesting than another RC tank.
That’s quite an angry rant, mre, and a misdirected one – the project page hardly mentions the tank at all, it’s all about the controller.
Agreed a little angry indeed. perhaps you could produce one such project or robot yourself?