Tiger 1 BB airsoft RC Tank – V3

This is the sequel of 2 other posts describing previous work on this project:

• version 2 of the tank attempt
• and the initial work which dealt more with the low level building.

It also builds on this previous post, which is all about interfacing the WiiMote IR Camera with the NXT and tracking an IR LED with a Lego motor.

11Jun2011 – FINALLY !!!

Everything seems to work nicely together now it not only tracks and locks on the target, but it finally shoots PLASTIC PELLETS !

WiiMote IR Camera with Lego NXT Brick – LeJOS

This previous post talks about how to connect a IR Camera from a WiiMote to an Arduino.

There’s also this one, talking about how to connect it to the .NET micro framework, FEZ Domino board (which also has hardware details on how to extract the mentionned camera and solder it on its own little board…).

It’s therefore time I wrote a quick post, on how to interface this wonderful camera with a Lego NXT Brick, programmed in Java thanks to LeJOS !

WiiMote IR Camera and Lego NXT - LeJOS

Lego NXT – Arduino Truck

New & improved NXT truck and LeJOS running brick !

The beast after the lifting...

IR Remote (Syma s026) dedicated board – V2 – AtTiny45

IRcmdS026_AtTiny45_Final_Side1

Right, the previous post was about creating a dedicated board that can do 2 things:

1. read and decrypt the IR commands sent by the Syma s026 remote control
2. send them via a serial link (to the “central” MCU or elsewhere)

IR Remote (Syma s026) dedicated board

Syma s026 Remote IR protocol decryptor

I’ve talked in at least 1 other post about how to use the Infra Red remote control of a toy helicopter (Syma s026) for other projects : once the protocol reverse engineered, it’s very easy to program a micro controller to listen to it and I find it very useful to integrate this into any project that needs some wireless remote controlling.

It’s also quite cheap, all you need is an IR receiver and the microcontroller that you alreay use in the given project…

BUT, the more I used it the more I hit one problem : it uses far too much of the MCU ressources, because the remote keeps sending 29 bytes signals all the time and you have to try to intercep them all to check if anything has changed in the commands sent !

IR Beacon

This is a stand-alone IR Beacon useful for your robot to find its way around.

It can be configured to emit a different byte, so that you can have several of them meaning different points for the robot.

Improve IrDA to UART adapter

Final integration of the IrDA device with the Peggy2 board

While coming back to work on the Peggy2 board and it’s interaction with my PSP, I needed to fix some issues with the IrDA to UART adapter (this is the piece that allows the PSP to communicate to Peggy2 through infrared).

Basically I had to create a new support for the IrDA transceiver and also to test if the bi-directional communication works (it does, like a charm…! ).