IOIO Controller Replacement For An RC Truck

September 11, 2012 by Mike Szczys 5 Comments

This RC truck can be controlled with the tip of your thumb or the tilt of a wrist. That’s thanks to the IOIO which was inserted in place of the toy’s original controller. [Exanko] made the hardware changes in order to use his Android phone as the controller. The white circle is a software joystick that acts as throttle when your thumb moves along the Y axis, and steering when it moves along the X axis. But while he was at it he also included accelerometer input as an alternative control option.

The IOIO board has a Bluetooth dongle connected to its USB port as a means of wireless communication. The dongle was hacked to accept an external antenna, thereby increasing the truck’s range. There is also some on-board flair like LEDs for lights and even a laser diode for… well we’re not sure what that’s for. Get a better look at the hardware internals in the clip after the break.

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Remote Control Does Everything

September 10, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 31 Comments

After a year of development, the OSRC is ready to hit a manufacturing plant. This transmitter (and receiver) for remote control cars, airplanes, quadcopters, and semi-autonomous drones features modular everything and allows you to transmit video from the cockpit and display it on a screen in the palm of your hands.

This isn’t the first time we’ve posted something on the OSRC, but since then [Demetris], the team lead has released a ton of information on the capabilities of the OSRC main unit, the clip-on FPV display, and the receiver and transmitter modules made to operate with the OSRC.

Unfortunately, [Demetris] spent a good deal of money developing the OSRC and is now doing a pseudo-kickstarter, ostensibly to gauge interest and allay a bank’s fears when applying for a small business loan. If all goes as planned, the OSRC base unit should cost somewhere around €300, a significant sum, but really not that bad considering the OSRC simply does more than other high-end RC transmitters.

We’re hoping enough people will step up and promise to buy the OSRC after it goes into manufacturing, otherwise we’ll be waiting a few more years before the big names in the RC transmitter game manage to come out with a similar product.

Le-GoKART; A GoKart Built Entirely From Lego

September 8, 2012 by Richard Steele 24 Comments

[Eric Steenstra], from the Netherlands, decided to build a GoKart entirely from LEGO Mindstorm parts. Tested at being able to carry just over 100Kg in weight, a 16 stone man(224 lbs). This GoKart can easily carry a child and propel him along. Eric used 48 stock Mindstorm motors, geared down, and 16 battery packs to provide a balance between torque and speed.

This vehicle doesn’t expect to win any races in the speed department. From the point of view of being something different this wins hands down. The Karts first test drive was only two weeks ago so drivability and durability are still under development at this stage. See the video after the break on this monstrous Mindstorms creation.

via[Make]

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Winning A No Holds Barred Pinewood Derby

September 5, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 27 Comments

Every year, [ilektronx] and a few other guys get together and compete in a ‘no holds barred’ pinewood derby for kids of all ages. Of course this results in an immense amount of engineering to push a wooden block with wheels down a track, and [ilektronx]’s car is no exception. He won the competition with electronics from a remote control airplane bolted on to a piece of wood.

The electronics for [ilektronix]’s build are pretty much what you’d find in any small electric RC plane: a cheap transmitter / receiver combo sends commands to an ESC which powers a small brushless motor with a small LiPo battery.

Like all good pinewood derby cars, the success of [ilektronix]’s entry relied on the overall design. The wooden chassis cleverly hugs the raised guide in the track, and the slight downward angle of the propeller keeps the car from popping a wheelie when it is released from the starting line.

You can check out a video summary of the pinewood derby competition after the break. Also shown are a few of the other derby cars, including an amazing futuristic tank entry built by [Ken Cook]. [Ken] spent the better part of a year on his build, and the amazing detail of making his own tank treads by hand made him a shoe-in for the winner of the ‘style’ competition.

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Zeppelin On The Fisher Price Record Player Now Thanks To A 3D Printer

September 4, 2012 by Mike Szczys 13 Comments

[Fred Murphy] went ahead and revised his method of making custom records for a Fisher Price toy record player. He’s now able to 3D print the discs. The toy works much like a music box, with a comb in the “cartridge” of the record player and notches in the record that pluck the fingers of the comb as it turns. He had previously developed a subtractive method that let him mill records out of a solid piece of plastic. But this additive method means less waste.

The music creation portion of the project is the same as the previous version. That’s because it’s pretty hard to outdo the C# software he wrote which serves as a composition studio. The difficulty comes in getting a clean print for the disk. The ridges on the discs are 0.7mm so you’re going to need a well-aligned printer with fine resolution. [Fred] printed in both ABS and what he calls “Vero clear” plastic. The former works but he got better results with the latter.

Labor Day Weekend Water Gun Spectacular

September 2, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 4 Comments

In the US, summer is marked by two holidays. In late May, Memorial day traditionally marks the the beginning of summer, the opening of public pools, and the day shopping malls are invaded by scores of petulant teenagers. In early September, Labor day marks the traditional end of summer, a great weekend to fire up the grill, and finally – finally – an end to the neighborhood kids screaming their heads off outside. Being Labor day weekend, we were very happy to see two builds show up in the tip jar concerning the one object that defines summer: water guns.

Homemade Super Soaker

[Michael] had the genius idea of building a water gun out of a diaphragm expansion tank (German, here’s the terrible translation). These tanks – usually connected to a house’s hot water line near the hot water heater – allow for the expansion of hot water and protects pipes from excessive pressure. It does this with a rubber membrane separating the inside the tank into two halves. Half the tank is filled with water while the other half is filled with compressed air from a bicycle pump.

[Michael] connected a hose and made a nice gun out of aluminum pipe to build the ‘gun’ part of his build. With 9 bar of pressure in the expansion tank, [Michael] can shoot a stream of water 20 meters.

Water gun turret with a laser sight

This build comes from [Valentin]. He picked up a automobile water pump for just a few Euros, and attached it to a 1 liter bottle filled with water. A pan/tilt turret was constructed out of CNC milled aluminum and a pair of servos.

After [Valentin] got the water-shooting turret part of the build out of the way, he installed a 2.4 GHz wireless camera on the pan/tilt mount and taped a receiver to the back of his remote control.

The addition of a small LCD screen displaying the turret’s point of view makes for a very cool build, perfect for pestering those annoying neighborhood kids.

Video of [Valentin]’s build after the break.

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RC Plane Made Specifically For UAVs

September 1, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 20 Comments

We’ve seen our fair share of remote-controlled planes turned into UAVs and FPV platforms, but the Techpod is the first airplane we’ve seen specifically designed to be used as a camera-equipped robotic airplane.

The Techpod is the brainchild of [Wayne Garris]. He has been flying camera-equipped FPV airplanes for a while now, but recently realized the current offerings of remote control planes didn’t match his needs. [Wayne] decided to design his own plane specifically designed with a pan/tilt camera mount in the nose.

[Wayne]’s prototype was designed with some very fancy aeronautical design software packages and milled out of foam. From the videos after the break, we can see the Techpod flies beautifully, but needs the Kickstarter community to bring his model to the masses.

The specs for the Techpod put it up there with other high-performances FPV and UAV models; with its 102 inch (2590 mm) wingspan and a pair of batteries wired in parallel, the Techpod can stay aloft transmitting video for up to one hour.

Video of the plane in action after the break.

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