The introduction of powerful, inexpensive processors that also provide a wide range of functionality through free open-source software has caused the do-it-yourself electronic project work to expand far beyond the simple, less than inspiring projects of the past. Now the developers can, with very low cost, create amazingly complex projects that were almost unthinkable a few years ago.
Many in this community are using Raspberry Pi as the basis for this revolution. This book provides simple, easy-to-follow instructions on how to use the Raspberry Pi in some very complex and sophisticated projects. Now enough of the introduction, let's start building something.
In this chapter, you'll learn the following:
- How to modify an Xmods RC car using Raspberry Pi
- How to set break into the control circuitry of the car and use Raspberry Pi to control it
- How to use wireless communication to add remote control to the car
A brief note before you start. In this book, you'll be using Raspberry Pi B2, a microprocessor that can run on the Linux operating system. The following is an image of the unit, with the different interconnectors labeled:
As this is an advanced projects book, you have already spent some time with Raspberry Pi and know how to write Raspbian/Wheezy on an SD card and boot your Raspberry Pi. If you don't, feel free to go to the Raspberry Pi website at https://www.raspberrypi.org/. Here you'll find all the instructions that you need to get your Raspberry Pi B 2 up and running.
Note that you may want to install your system on a microSD card that has at least 8 GB of memory. In some of the projects that you'll be building, you'll be installing some fairly significant pieces of open source software and you may not want to run out of memory.
Now you are ready to start with some simple product modification. Let's start with an RC car; you'll replace the transmitter and control the car with a wireless connection on Raspberry Pi.