Bluetooth Car with Arduino

My childhood dream came true and I built my own remote-controlled car. What does it contain?

• The frame is made of fake mercury and lots of glue.
• The heart is a fake Arduino Uno powered by 4x AA batteries.
• There are two motors underneath, powered by another 4x AA batteries :) Turning is done by turning on one motor, going forward is done by both.
• The remote control is provided by an HC-05 Bluetooth module - you can control the car from any device with a Bluetooth console, I made an app for Windows 10 for comfortable control.
• There are lots of wires and even 2 transistors!
• It can also light up and buzz :)

Here is the final model in action:

The first model looked something like this. I still thought it would all fit in a vitamin box. An even worse mistake was the idea of powering it all with one 9V battery. It wouldn’t even start. I had to use a total of 8 AA batteries and start the motors through transistors.

Then I started building more generously on a metal structure.

If it weren’t for waiting for battery holders from China, I would have had the whole project finished two months earlier. In the end, this company originally from the Czech Silicon Valley saved me. I’m still waiting for the holders from China (since August 2016).

The code for the car itself is embarrassingly simple, for interest’s sake I attach it here. The UWP application for Win10 is available here, the screenshot is on the left. That was more demanding.

Description of buttons: 1 is light, 3 is buzzer, 8 is forward, 4 and 6 are sideways. The nice thing is that it remembers and processes commands serially (the connection also goes through a serial link), so you can quickly type something and the car will do it nicely one after the other.