Endurance

Hello,

I would like to share my latest project with you guys. I have created a "virtual" r/c driving experience which uses a pc game steering wheel and pedals to control a standard r/c car. I have also mounted a pan and tilt camera base on the car which responds to my head movements. The video from the camera is fed back into the goggles to provide an image similar to what you see when driving a full size car. Here is an image of what the car looks like up close:



Here is a video of the car running: [link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHNgm959vc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHNgm959vc[/link]

-EXTRA-

Thats to freakin cool Awesome job how much does it cost?

boltech

NICE! good stuff

just add a mechanical arm and you have a high speed bomb disposal robot.

do let us know the costs for such a project

ferrariowner123

yeah make the arm big enough for a beer bottle or a can, then your set.

R/C fan-addict

wow that's awesome dude! Looks very clean and cool too!

GYNAIKAS

Its is simply awesome.I'm doing research at patras university robotics department and i know that this king of project is not even for intermediate students! WELL DONE BOY!!!! If you need any automation system advice pm me anytime!!!

and again WAY TO GO BOY!!!!!!

Philster

That rocks. Personally, I'd line up some Barbies, dress them provactively and cruise up to them and cut a video of it from the driver's perspective. But I'm sick like that.

Seriously, good work and hope to see more updates. Need some driver-view video!

boltech

[X(] <nothing to say>

Endurance

Thanks for the awesome feedback!

All the hardware minus the car was about $900. This includes the headset, pc game wheel and pedals, transmitter, pan/tilt hardware and servos, transmitter interface, wireless camera, video capture device. I already had the car and all electronics. You can't see it in the video but everything is running through a laptop. On the laptop is some custom software I created that helps dial in the settings for any vehicle and connects all the devices together. Here is an image:



I think an arm would be very cool. I will have to get a larger car before I can add that though.

Gex_61

How lazy can we get, RC from the living room couch (just kidding)

Endurance

You could always do r/c from your couch.

boltech

Why stop there

Use laptops TV out to big screen TV. get a signal Amp and a larger Antenna on the roof of your house.
Now you can RC outdoors and drive around the block from the comfort of your living room couch.
brings back memories of tinkering with the Hero 2000 robot in high school.

Anomie

Dude, that is freaking awesome! I love it when people go nuts with this hobby.

Nice job, man. See how far you can take it!

Endurance

boltech,

The visor allows me to see what is coming out of the camera, its actually like looking at a big screen tv about 6 feet away. It acts like a second monitor attached to the PC.

rc monkey

[X(][X(][X(] Amazing!!!

Anomie

Sony made a similar device a few years ago. I believe it was called the 'Glasstron'. It had a small LCD on each lens, and a set of earbud headphones built in. Pretty cool!

smaxx3.3

a great design, looks good!

hands without shadows

Looks good, but whats with the plywood floor!?

Endurance

hands without shadows,

The house is under construction, not mine. It was the only place indoors I had access to that was big enough.


Heretique,

The Z800 looks very similar to the sony one, it even has earbuds. The wireless camera I have has a built in mic but i have not tried it yet. I am thinking that the noise from the motor would be all that I hear. I was hoping to be able to hear full size cars coming since there is not much peripherial vision with the camera and headset.

Several people have been asking me about adding 2 cameras in to make the view better but at the moment I have not figured out how to run dual cameras into the headset yet.

Medrivfast

For less than $100 Toys-R-Us has an R/C car with a camera like this one. I know it's not as elaberate. But it's the same concept.

Anomie

Perhaps you could involve an interocular processor that can combine the images from two cameras, similar to stereo still image systems. That way you could have 3D video!

Or maybe I'm being overzealous...

Endurance

Heretique,

The Z800 actually has some examples to do this sort of thing but Im just really not that convinced that a second camera would make a whole lot of difference for the trouble it would take to implement. You would still be displaying the images directly in front of your eyes. It would be very nice to have a visor that had displays that wraped around your eyes instead of just directly in front of them. They do exist but are way out of my price range.

Anomie

This is true, it would likely be a logistical nightmare in setup.

On another front, do you have any audio installed? I plan to utilize some sort of two-way system so I can communicate through the ROV, but I haven't really delved into the idea too much as of yet. If you have, I was just wondering what type of setup you used.

Endurance

The camera has a built in mic but I have not tried it yet. Another person doing something similar reported that all he could hear was the noise of the motor running. Im sure it would be ok when the car was stopped however. Maybe something to try would be to add an FRS radio onboard that you could control via an r/c switch. This would keep the mic off until you activated it.

Anomie

That is a great idea. I had also toyed with the idea of using part of a modified 10-meter radio that could be keyed with a relay on one of the receiver channels. This might allow for more interference, but also a very powerful and highly modulated signal. I also think the FRS radio would be much easier on batteries, however.