The plan for the design challenge is to take some old bits that have been in my scrap drawer and make something interesting from them in the form of an interactive toy car and driver.
The Edison will provide the brain and communications which will allow the car to be controlled from a tablet or phone via MQTT. As the vehicle moves the headlights / indicators would activate and the driver would talk and move.
The vehicle is an old radio controlled car that has 2 motors and skid steers like a tank. I'm going to strip out the original radio from this and add an H-Bridge module to control the 2 motors. Also, a new battery box will be added to power the all the components. If there is time a new 3D printed body-shell will be added too. There are a number of sensors and actuators with the Grove kit so these can be used to add some extra functionality to the car.
The driver is a first generation Furby from the 1990s. It's controlled by a single motor and some clever cams. This will need a bit of reverse engineering to find out how it works and what it is capable of. There's a speaker in the furby that can be hooked up to the Edison to play back messages and sounds from the SDCard.
As mentioned in the proposal, I've a range of old electronics that have been salvaged over the years such as LEDs, micro switches, connectors, cables and displays. I will try to use these in preference to buying anything new. I'll try to remember where the particular parts came from but I have to confess I don't remember where I got some of them.
Top Comments
Interesting gearbox arrangement.
BTW the top right tyre is on backwards.
The Furby alone is a worthy upcycle so the car to transport it is a bonus.
Looking forward to seeing how this one goes.
Mark
Good start.
Command and control enable you to do much more later.
DAB
Good spot, I think I can fix that tyre quite easily. The furby has lots of connectors internally so I'm hoping that I can swap out the original control board relatively easily.