This week, the assignment was to change the controller on our concept vehicle from wired, to bluetooth controlled from our cell phones. It sounded straightforward at first, but I ran into a lot of difficult issues.
1. My servo was being powered by 12V, so while it worked with the wired controller, once I switched to bluetooth, it overheated and burned out. This was fixed by attaching the servo to the connection between the two 6V batteries, feeding only 6V through it.
2. Due to a misunderstanding, my servo signal pin ended up being plugged into pin 1 while the program was uploading to the board, unsyncing the USB port. Much debugging later, including trying a new Arduino, I discovered that the problem was that pins 0 and 1 were interfering with the uploading. Tip: upload first, then plug wires in.
3. Pressing start on the buttons caused my motors to start, but not stop. I added in a default case to the switch cases, essentially implementing a power and brake system. The most maneuverable solution will probably be adding in a delay followed by turning the motors off, instead.
4. It was difficult to see where the front wheel was turning, so Chris added a hack-y unicorn horn for more visibility.
The following video is a demo of the vehicle!
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