Now why would you do THAT?

Please Note:   Unlike most of my projects which are fully complete before they are published, this project is as much a build diary as anything else.  Whilst I am attempting to clearly document the processes, this is not a step-by-step guide, and later articles may well contradict earlier instructions. If you decide you want to duplicate my build, please read through all the relevant articles before you start. In the previous post we looked at getting a motor driver up and running, and I realised I breezed over the process of how it was all connected.  This article will (hopefully) address that shortcoming. Because this is a mobile project, vibration and the like will take a toll on connections and as we know, poor connections will lead to poor results.  For this reason, I am going to take you through my process of making up wiring harnesses to suit our car.  Clearly unless you are using the same car and modules as me your wiring is going to vary, but I hope this will get yo

Please Note:   Unlike most of my projects which are fully complete before they are published, this project is as much a build diary as anything else.  Whilst I am attempting to clearly document the processes, this is not a step-by-step guide, and later articles may well contradict earlier instructions. If you decide you want to duplicate my build, please read through all the relevant articles before you start. Last time we were discussing the challenges of building your own self-driving car (albeit at about 10% scale).  I've now moved past the daydream phase of the project and it's time to get something happening. From this... To this... First handy hint, get the car up high so you can move around and work on it without bending over all the time.  I borrowed a guitar stool from one of my sons and balanced the car quite nicely on that.  A portable workbench would also do the job nicely. I will pay tribute to the people at Lovbio, because this car really i

There's nothing like  a ridiculous challenge to keep me amused, and this one is huge.  There are no instruction manuals or how-to guides, and definitely more questions than answers at this point. I am trying to build a self-driving car.   Not a road-going car exactly, but I have taken one of those kid's electric cars (about 10% size licensed copies of real cars), and I intend to make it capable of driving itself, following a road, avoiding obstacles and such like. UPDATED:   Watch a timelapse (kind-of) video of the build up: But why use that?  Surely it would be easier to use a remote control chassis as a starting point? Yes, you're right.  In a lot of ways it would be easier.  The biggest problem is that those chassis are rather small, which makes packaging difficult and it can limit the options I want to add.  My method gets around that, and I get more battery power for no cost as well.  Plus it really looks like a car (if you squint hard enough, anywa

I love building robots.   They are a great test of your creativity and problem-solving skills.  They are also a good way to introduce kids to electronics and software. These days they are also very inexpensive to get started with, thanks to Arduino and low-cost modules.  Even if you don't know how to solder, chances are you could build the machine I describe here in an afternoon. What is it? It's been named "The Meerkat".  If you watch the accompanying video it's not hard to see how the kids named it. This is a 4-wheel machine which uses sonar to detect and avoid obstacles.  To make life a little more interesting, the ultrasonic modules is steered using a small servo motor.  This allows the machine to more effectively find a clear path. The Design At the heart of the robot is an Arduino Mega2560.  This board has all of the I/O we need and is programmed with the Arduino IDE application. The Arduino board cannot drive the motors by itsel