Carduino

This project is an Arduino powered vehicle perfect for any project needing a vehicle component.

Step 1: Acquire RC Car

The first step to building your own Carduino is to acquire a RC Car of your choosing. This link will direct you to the Amazon page for the car used in this demonstration. It runs about $70 but is a great deal for the performance.

Step 2: Step Two: Attach Arduino

After purchasing a RC Car, you need to attach the motors your Arduino. If you do not own an Arduino, you can purchase one here. They run about $25, but you can find knock-off brands on the internet for much cheaper, and they will work the same. Keep in mind that you also need an Arduino motorshield to run the motors on the car. I suggest the seeed studio shield as their library is very straight forward for coding. You can pick one up here. They run about $20. Once you have the shield attached to Arduino you can start wiring up the motors. Remove the plastic shell on the car and remove the pieces of casing covering the motors and battery. You should see a large motor in the back and a smaller motor in the front for steering. You will want to cut the power and ground wires for both motors in order to wire them to the motorshield. I soldered all four wires to different wires with tips so I could plug them into the shield easier. That is not required, but I do highly recommend soldering them to wires with points. Attach your newly soldered wires to the motorshield. You are now ready to code your Carduino.

Step 3: Step 3: Code

This step is a little bit more independent. You can design your Carduino to do whatever you would like it to. I did not have much time to design mine so I wrote a code that drives in circles. I will include my code just so you can see how to work the Seeed Studio library.

#include //be sure to include your library
#include

MotorDriver motor; //this initiates your motors

void setup() { // put your setup code here, to run once:

motor.begin(); // you must include this to begin your motor

motor.speed(MOTORA, 0); //set both motors to 0 to make sure they do not run on start up

motor.speed(MOTORB, 0); }

void loop() { // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:

motor.speed(MOTORA, 100); //run the steering motor for a short duration to set the motor on a circular path motor.speed(MOTORB, 0); // do not run the drive motor

delay(10);

motor.speed(MOTORA, 0); //do not change the augment of the front wheels

motor.speed(MOTORB, 80); //run the drive motor

delay(1000);

motor.speed(MOTORB, 0); //shut off the drive motor

delay(100); //let the car coast to a stop

motor.speed(MOTORA, -100); //reset the wheels

delay(10);

}

You are set to customize your Carduino to your liking. Thanks for reading