Is there a way to have a computer program do the steering for a car? I know that seems like it takes all the fun out of this, but I have a different use in mind. And dumb down the answer, please, because this is literally Day 1 for me.

If you tell me the 'use' you have in mind, then I might tell you how it could be done.

asda

I am trying to build a robot and one way to control its movement is with an R/C. However, I don't want to stand around and drive it - I want it to follow a program. I'm really fishing for ideas and haven't decided on the best way to do this, so I just wanted to see if this was a viable option.

I have a guy from church who is a professor in mechanical engineering specializing in robotics. He has written several routines in C++ that do some cool stuff. Just a thought.

Cheers

There was an episode of "The Screen Savers" on Tech TV a few months back where this kid used his PC to controll a small R/C car. Go to www.techtv.com/thescreensavers and do a search or contact the staff and they should be able to give you a link to the kid's site. Hope it's some help.

If you don't know much about writing programs, your best bet would be the lego mindstorms kits. I've seen some really cleaver robots made out of that (on their website) including one that could actually play checkers! You can also buy all sorts of motion sensors etc. to fit on it. The only problem would be that I'm not sure if you could adapt it to work with materials other than lego.

asda