RC Car w/ Raspberry Pi (Pico)

Click here for GitHub Repo.

Microcontrollers!! Wooooooahhhh!!

This has been one of my favorite projects to-date, as it wasn't just programming intensive, but hardware intensive as well!

This project makes use of the Raspberry Pi Pico, a super tiny microcontroller, or basically a lobotomized computer with no operating system. It's only responsible for running whatever program is stored in its 2MB of flash memory, meaning there's no native support for audio, video, internet connection, bluetooth, etc. without adding peripherals.

So, as seen in the picture above, I did just that! I used two servo motors for the wheels on either side, a 7-segment LCD to display emoticons (0v0), and an IR receiver that can be controlled by a generic IR remote (which I actually took from one of those RGB strip kits people use for their rooms.)

The RC car can be controlled through directional inputs, several predefined emoticon faces that the display can switch to, along with preset motions such as doing 360's and wiggling from side to side.

All in all it's pretty adorable (just don't look at the wiring.) GIFs found on my GitHub! Thanks!