RC Car/Robot to race in a track? Help needed

[garriwilson]

OK, once again I have an idea. I wanted to make a track ( I dunno like out of cereal boxes or something) and a rc car/robot that would race in it. I was inspired by fritsl's Wall Racers, thank you ^^

Also, I would like it to be able to get around obstacles. I want to program it so that it knows where to go in the race and stuff, but then I will randomly place obstacles, and it should get around them and continue on the track.

P.S. I know absolutely no programming, and I do no know what sensors to use exactly (sonar?).

SO I NEED LOTS OF HELP.

thanks

[izua]

perhaps simple experiments are in order so you can actually learn programming.

[garriwilson]

well i was hoping you guys could help me on the programming...

i found an rc car which seems to suit my needs while being relatively cheap:

http://www.hobbytron.com/RCFerrariF50ElectricRemoteControlCar.html

[izua]

as long as a community gives you hints and advice, i doubt anyone would help you out with your project if he's not part of it (either as a client, like getting paid, or as a team member, ie, it gets to play with the stuff). no offence

[garriwilson]

Well in the past I've gotten lots of help from people here (thanks ), and I believe they are still willing to help, if I'm not mistaken.

[izua]

Everyone is willing to help, that's why were here.
All I am saying is that no one will write a complete program for you, unless he's somehow involved with it.

So, why don't we figure out exactly what you need, so we can make some guidelines for what sensors to use, how the program should be structured, etc? For example, how would you differentiate race track and basic floor?

[garriwilson]

Hmm I see your point. For example if I were to win the robot contest with this, he'd want in huh? lol

Well regarding the race floor.. I haven't decided what I want to use for it. Maybe I'll just go with basic floor everywhere, and just set the barriers on each side of the track so the robot could be a wall-avoider. I believe that would be the easiest way.

Then, I would like it to avoid obstacles, which I will randomly place for each time it races, but once it goes around the obstacle, it still has to keep going on track.

Thanks

[izua]

Well, think about it. You know to do a specific task. Engineering, precision mechanics, playing guitar, picking up chicks, picking up strippers, and so on. If someone says "can anyone help me do engineering/precision mechanics/play guitar/pick up a chick/pick up a stripper?" you may be in the position to give him pointers.
however, if you (and i insist here on the last two examples, to prove a point ) do it by yourself, wouldn't it be your achievement?
I think the same thing happens here. No one is going to do a complete robot code (unless, of course, he has a ton of free time and implicitly money) unless he can also play with the robot. Would you allow someone to play with the stripper you picked up, even if he is the one who wanted to pick her up? *ahem*

Now, back to the original thing. What do you mean by race? High speed? You do understand the implications of it: for example, the microcontroller would have to be fast.
A better idea could be marking the race track on cardboard / writing with marker on tiles. this way, you could do line detection. however, the track would have to be as big as the car. If you are going with an obstacle avoider to detect the track, you could end up with the robot going in zigzags between adjacent positions (horizontal movement) instead of sprinting across the track (vertical movement). The idea of a race would rule out the first variant.

You should have some standards, you know, before starting a project.

[garriwilson]

Um nice examples there they really helped. (no sarcasm, im serious)

And I'm thinking to start with something simpler first.. like learning programming lol, so I think I'll leave this one for the future.

P.S. stripper.. lol

[JesseWelling]

You might find this useful in getting your ideas rolling.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~johannb/vff&vfh.htm

[blackheart]

You could cover the race track with some insulating tape as it would provide you with awesome grip and would help you distinguish the race track from normal floor given the many colors available.

The obstacle avoidance could be handled either by ir rangefinders or sonars. Check Sharp IR and Parallax Ping.

Admin would know about avoiding random obstacles you put on the track. Check this out!

iRobot Create w/ Adaptive Mapping

You could also use edge detection to make it follow a line(the track)


Good Luck and don't give up!