This tutorial shows how to mount, program and use a remot controlled car using a smartphone as controller.
All devices, tools, software and hardware are availible on common websites.

If we do not have the drivermall we can use the arduino, but below the link for the development of the Drivemall.

The advantage of prefering the Drivemall over the classic Arduino board is that of reducing the complexity of the connections leading to a more tidy setup. However, this is optional: all the results are still valid with the arduino board, a breadboard and enough dupont jumpers for connections.

The whole setup consists of an Arduino based firmware, a 3d printed frame and a set of common maker items.

The project aims to promote an informal form of education as a means to foster social inclusion of young people, informal education as can be found within makerspaces.

This tutorial reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Step 1: What We Need

Before starting, let's list all items we need for.

USB Cable
distnaziatori m3
chassis
2 motori dc with wheel
ESP8266
6 battery AA
1 switch
nut and bolt
Board

Step 2: Chassis & Frame

The chassis we got at the previous step is not enough for the purpose. The board, the battery holders, wifi receiver and all wires need more space then the chassis provides.

On the top of 3D frame where there is the lodging of esp assemble the battery holder and the esp lodging

on the on the batton assemble the Drivemall (see picture 1,2 and 3 )

For the assemble the wheel we use the other chassis (picture 4)

On rear is present the wheel without motor for the stability of the machine (picture 5 6)

On front punt the support for motor (picture 4) and the motor rotated to the rear, after screwing, install the wheels

Step 3: Battery Holder

It is important to easly disconnect the batteries because when the car is not used, batteries run low.

In any case it is useful to have a trivial access to the batteries for the substitutions.

In order to switch off the machine easily, position the switch in the appropriate hole and solder two wires to the switch pins.

In order to have a correct power supply, the machine requires two battery holders connected in series then solder the wire from the negative pole of the first to the positive pole of the second, after solder the wire from the positive pole of the first to switch and the wire on the negative pole of the second (see pictures 3,4 and 5).

Step 4: Let's Flash the Device

Once the mechanical part is done, we can go ahead with the electornic part.

Here we describe how to connect al things and how to flash the device.

Let's go connect the supply in the board are present two power connectors first for the micro and second for the motor (see picture 3 and 4).

We are going to connect the 3.3V power supply for the ESP8266 and the enable pin.The TX and RX pins of the ESP8266 must be connected once the Drivemall has been programmed and with each SW update it must be disconnected. (picture 5 to 9 )

Solding the cable on the motor and connect on the bord as in the pictur 11,12 and 13.

The code needs the following libraries:

ESP8266_Lib.h which allows us to manage the ESP;
LiquidCrystal_I2C.h to be able to write on the display;
BlynkSimpleShieldEsp8266.h to be able to control the device from the blynk app;
Wire.h for I2C communication.

Before uploading the FW we must modify the following parts to connect to the Blynk application and to access the ESP8266's WiFi

char auth[] = " your token"per il token

char ssid[] = "your WiFi name"

char pass[] = "your WiFi password"

At the end load the fw end connect the TX, RX pins

Macchinina.ino
Download

Step 5: Smartphone & Blynk

The remote controller we want to use is a smartphone.

Using a device allows us to have a simple controller and to have more functionality for future improvments: moovmets porgrammed, gps localization, scheduling of actions and all operations not possible with a common controller.

Create a new project selecting as hardware Arduino Mega and connection type WiFi (pictures 1).

Once the project is created you will receive a mail containing the authorization token for your project. The interface for control based on blynk has three botton stop forward and back associated with the variables V4 V2 and V3.

For the control the direction we use the jostic with variable V5 the speed is controlled by slider with variable V1.