Today I dug out one of my old childhood favorites, the tyco rebound. In case you've never seen one, the rebound has 4 wheels large enough so the car can flip itself over. Steering is done like a tank with no treads, each side going forward or backward. It's also FAST. I tore it open and it's built perfectly for modding. There are 6 wires attached to a circuit board. 2 for each motor and two coming from a 6 volt battery pack.
So I cannibalized my "carboard cruiser" project and hooked my picaxe28 board to the motors. Running on only 4.5 volts the thing can barely move itself forward, but holding it off the ground works so I just need more voltage. I want to use the original battery packs as V2 on the project board if I can find the charger to go with them, if not I just need any 6volt source.
horrible quality due to cell phone camera, but you get the idea...
Connecting stuff is easy, now I have the hard part of deciding what to do with it. I have a sharp sensor and a servo, but I'm looking into making another big purchase of parts soon so I'm not too limited on what I can use.
If you've ever seen a rebound in action you know they can spin around very fast. I was thinking I could use that for some type of aplication. Maybe have an extendable arm, where it could start spinning and extend the arm to knock down things...or something. That sounds cool but not very usefull...
If you have any ideas, please share them.