NurdRacer

NurdRacer
Participants
Skills	Construction, 3D Printing, Electronics, Coding, Image postprocessing, Machine Learning
Status	Planning
Niche	Mechanics
Purpose	Electronics, fun, world domination
Tool	No
Location	Space
Cost	100 - 1000
Tool category

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Concept:

A bit like the robotic maze racers, but with 360 degree 4 wheel steering / 4 wheel drive that humans couldn't use effectively without assistance from PID systems and other tech you would see in, for example, vectored thrust flight systems.

The competitive robo element comes at a (much) later stage, when deep learning serves to improve the machine's lap times far beyond human capabilities. Starting with phase 1, the main goal is to provide a fun racing experience for the human racer.

Hardware/features:

• 8 steppers . 4 wheels with independent 360 steering and independent drive.
• 4 PCBs on wheel units with ATtiny and H bridges. Each PCB drives 2 motors, reads 2 encoders + 1 accelerometer, and handles low level steering logic. Uses I2C to talk to:
• 1 or more SBCs (RasPi comes to mind) for coms, telemetry, mid level steering/locomotion logic, and more…
• WiFi or G4 connecitivity. Or better yet, something open or unregulated. Low latency needed! UDP? Websocket? MQTT?
• A proper stack of batteries. A charging circuit. China?

Later expansion/improvement:

• 1 or 2 camera's for optical flow sensing, VR, SLAM
• Proximity sensors (ultrasonic transducers)
• GPS
• More (GPGPU?) processing power -> more/better batteries
• Lighter materials
• Better motors, wheels
• Stereo 8K video streaming wirelessly :)

Step 1

Hardware overview