Nick's Electronics Blog

I'm especially proud of this remote. While it's not finished yet, I couldn't wait to make a post about it. It looks very stylish in my opinion, as long as you don't look at its profile and notice the bulging front plate. This thing is absolutely crammed with point to point wiring and is quite frankly horrifying. It is powered by an STM32F103, and uses a 2.4GHz radio module. A single AA battery is boosted to 5v, then dropped to 3.3v to power the screens, potentiometers, buttons, and microcontroller. The front panel has as many peripherals as I could cram in there: a pot, a joystick with a button and rotating stick, another joystick, a rotary encoder, a push button, a toggle switch, and two OLED screens. Currently both screens think I'm talking to them. I'll post an update when I get this thing past the prototype stage.

 One of the first real projects I ever completed was an RC car. As a 13 year old with no money, I did not have a 3D printer at the time. I guess cardboard will have to do. This "Mark Zero" iteration was not much more than a breadboard and a few motors taped to a piece of cardboard. Using a salvaged infrared sensor and a TV remote, I was able to communicate with the device from afar. An Arduino Nano set in the breadboard recorded different keypresses so I could associate them with moving the motors in different sequences. A servo motor in the front rotated a set of wheels spinning in a straw, while a small motor in the back drove a gearbox to propel the rear wheels. After this project, I got a 3D printer for Christmas. So I immediately started on the next iteration. This one was 3D-printed. It also used a 2.4GHz nRF24L01 radio module, and an STMF103 dev board. 3D printing opened a huge number of possibilities, though I'll be the first to admit I was...