rc

243 Articles

The HeliControl Project

July 15, 2009 by 4 Comments

helicontrol_offen (Custom)

We’ve all seen those little toy helicopters appearing everywhere. They’re getting cheaper and cheaper with some models getting down to roughly $30. The JRL team wanted to be able to control them with a PC, and figured the best way to do it was to build somewhat of a universal remote for them. The HeliControl module currently has several different types of copters programmed in, and they plan on adding more. Its not surprising to see the rise in popularity of these mini choppers, we’ve even seen some pretty extensive mods to the bodies and even mechanicals. Click around this forum to see what some people are doing to them.

Autonomous ATV

March 23, 2009 by 21 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja3ND8Pk_0M&hl=en&fs=1]

A team at UNC Charlotte has been working on an autonomous vehicle to drag a cart that has sensing equipment. Starting with a stock Honda ATV, different systems were added to give a Renesas processor control of the ATV.  A model airplane receiver was attached to the Renesas to give remote control for Phase 1 of the project. Basically they’ve turned the ATV into a giant remote controlled car.

Later revisions will incorporate LIDAR, cameras, and multiple GPS units so the ATV can autonomously traverse most terrain with a high level of accuracy. Path planning will become a large part of the project at that point.

Continue reading “Autonomous ATV” →

Paintball Gun Turret

February 26, 2009 by 39 Comments

paintball_sentry

[Jared Bouck] has been sending in his projects for a couple years now. We’ve enjoyed his heavy-duty DDR pads, LCD backlight repair, and ion cooling projects. His latest, an RC paintball gun turret, is our favorite though. He actually rates this as one of the easier projects he’s published; it just took a while to assemble. Several design decisions were made to keep the project simple. Two 32 Degrees Icon-E paintball guns were used. The guns already have electric solenoids for firing, so a special trigger mechanism didn’t have to be fashioned. Q-loaders were used to prevent any ball feed problems. The motors, driver boards, and RC components are all borrowed from combat robots for reliability. He’s hoping to produce a small number of kits based on this design.

Related: We’ve got quite a few sentry gun projects in the archive.

Radio Controlled Beetle

February 9, 2009 by 57 Comments

Scientists at the university of California have managed to implant a chip in a giant flower beetle that makes it respond to commands from the computer. They can tell it to fly, stop, turn left and turn right.  The controls are done through its optic nerves and wing muscles. Though the article states that flight signals are sent to the optic lobes and steering is done through stimulation of the wing muscles, the video shows steering being accomplished through optic lobe stimulation.

Though we’re sure there’s some grand scientific goal behind this, we can’t help but think (hope) that we’ll be seeing giant robot controlled beetle battles with lasers and rockets.

Radio Controlled Sphere

February 5, 2009 by 18 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8twa_zqT9Vg&feature=player_embedded]

[prabbit22m] has written an instructable on how to build a radio controlled sphere. The mechanism is fairly simple, with one drive motor, one servo and a gyro for stability. To turn, the servo shifts the center of gravity off to one side. You can see that the system works pretty well in the video above. If it didn’t have that gyro, it would be insane, believe us, we’ve done our own experimenting. If you like this, but want more features, check out this one that has a camera and takes pictures wherever it goes. We can’t forget Swarm either. The autonomous swarm of robot spheres. Of coarse [prabbit22m] might have the best idea of all. Dress it up as a regular ball to mess with people.

Modifying R/C Frequency

December 19, 2008 by No comments

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Cheap radio controlled toys can provide countless hours of amusement, especially when friends have one too. You can’t always plan ahead enough for everyone to have a different frequency and sometimes, it just isn’t an option anyway. There is a solution, and it isn’t very difficult. [frickelkram] takes us through the process of changing the frequency that the toy runs on. He starts with the simplest way, which involves replacing one piece in the controller and simply adjusting the receiver. He notes that this often fails as the receiver just isn’t built to be adjusted easily. He continues to show how to get it done even if the first method fails.