my first de-RCed car

During one of my many visits to the nearby goodwill, I spotted a rather nice RC racecar. However, like most RC cars at the goodwill, it lacked a radio controller. I thought that this would be a great opportunity to attempt RC car autonomy using the Arduino chip that I had recently been tinkering with. Of course, I failed at figuring out an elegant way to connect the arduino chip to the existing RC circuit, so I went back to the goodwill and purchased another RC car. I got lucky on this one, since the circuitry was very straightforward (and all 0-5v logic).

I successfully bypassed the RC car’s onboard control chip. My arduino chip is in power. I rigged up an IR distance sensor onto a little servo. In my first test run, I programmed the car to maintain a minimum and a maximum distance from whatever was in front of it. The distance sensor is pointed straight ahead, and the car only goes forward/backward. Check out the cool video: