@iagoro

On 2 June, I started a project. The idea was to build a radio-controlled car in the shape and style of a Formula 1 car, but I wanted to build the whole thing myself from scratch. The car is being built solely from my own designs, which are being 3D-printed. This project is divided into two parts: the car, which contains electronic components such as an Arduino R4 Wi-Fi, a servomotor for the steering, another for the DRS system, an L298N controller and two motors, as well as a battery holder with its own switch; and the remote control, which communicates with the car via a transmitter module in the remote and a receiver in the car. The remote control features components such as a Steemakers ESP32 Plus, a joystick for the motors, two buttons for steering, another to activate the DRS, and a display to show information. This is the plan for the project, which is not yet finished. Unfortunately, when I started this project I wasn’t familiar with Stardance, so I haven’t recorded all the hours spent doing calculations, looking through all the files and their dates, photos and videos – it could easily have been around 45 hours of unrecorded work. Anyway, what I’ve done so far has been to design the chassis and the mounts for the components, fit everything into the car, and build the steering system – which has undoubtedly been the most difficult part and caused me the most headaches, but which eventually ended up working. Since I started on Stardance, I’ve been designing the front wing, assembling the whole car to check that it works, and finally fitting just the remote control components to check that they work before designing the remote control itself. This isn’t proving to be an easy project – there are lots of errors cropping up – but you learn a lot from them. The next step will be to design the remote control in 3D and then print it.

In this section, I have designed the casing for the controller, which I have decided should be shaped like an F1 steering wheel. The controller will use a Steamaker ESP32 Plus board; a joystick will be used to control the car’s steering, and there will be two buttons to control the motors so that the car can move forwards and backwards. Also, to make it look more like a real F1 car, the steering wheel will feature a display showing information about the controller and the car, such as battery level, speed and the status of the DRS – which is the opening of the rear wing to reduce aerodynamic drag, something that’s very helpful in real cars. The next step will be to create the 3D model of the hollow steering wheel and add the mounts for the components.
If anyone can think of any extras to add to the car or the controller, please let me know; if it’s a good idea, I’ll take it into account and add it.