Interlude - Fun with the RCSIR

That's what I call video gaming!

Video gaming - dawidi style

(Winter/Spring 2005) While I didn't have much time (or patience) to deal with all the problems that occured after the widiCopter "Upgrades" - sometimes a student should actually do some studying, you know - I was looking for other (and simpler) ways of using the wireless mini camera I had acquired. When I saw a remote-controlled toy "monster truck" in a local store (ALDI) for the absurdly low price of EUR 12.99 I just couldn't resist and took the "Red Devil" (that's what the stickers said) home to see what I could do with it.
The car is operated by a 2-axis 27 MHz "broadband pollution" remote control that has "forward/stop/backward" and "turn left/go straight/turn right" values, which means you get all degrees of freedom cars usually have (some very cheap toys can only go straight forward and backward-left!). No proportional control there of course; and the steering is rather weak mechanically, so the turning circle is huge. But it's ok for that price. Did I mention the required rechargeable batteries (NiCd AA) are included?
Of course, at the age of 22, you can't just go playing with toys like that. I immediately removed the "monster truck" body, improvised a holder for the receiver antenna, got some tape and fixed the little camera and an extra battery pack for it on top of the plain black chassis. Within an hour of bringing the thing home I had the "mouse perspective" live picture on my laptop, using the setup I had devised for aerial imaging with the widiCopter.
Finally, the device needed a name; I settled for "RCSIR: Ridiculously Cheap Surface Imaging Rover", as it reminds me of the martian twins Spirit and Opportunity, NASA's highly successful robot geologists on Mars - admittedly, they are somewhat better equipped ;-)

And what can I say... this is SO much fun! The rover can reach (and video) any room in my place, and I can control it accurately without getting out of my computer chair. It whizzes around like a big rat or a small dog, and my parents treat it as if it actually were one. As soon as weather permitted I also tried it outside, discovering a radio range of about 30 meters, which matches the camera's range. (Luckily, unlike the helicopter, the rover just stops in case of a radio glitch.)
The experience, if you so will, to the "driver", is similar to video games like Revolt!, except that you're doing the racing in your own kitchen or living-room instead of some virtual neighborhood or supermarket. RCSIR's video quality has room for improvement, though. For indoor operation, actually it would be preferable if it ran a little slower and had a better turning circle; outdoors it has to struggle with small loose stones and getting back up on sidewalks.
Here are some pictures from the "navigation camera":

ZTV, 384x288	View from the sidewalk. You can see the antenna's shadow.	ZTV, 384x288	Another sidewalk view; you might know the scene from the helicopter's first aerial video frames.
ZTV, 384x288	From the small rover's viewpoint in the middle of the street, real cars look dangerous even when parked.	ZTV, 384x288	Like in one of the nicest panoramic pictures from Mars Exploration Rover "Spirit", my RCSIR captured its own camera's shadow. But the terrain the low sun shines on here isn't Gusev Crater, but the floor of my living room...

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