I found out how, without an external power source. Apparently the optical sensors run fine on 7.6 volts.
I did the following:
I attached the brown wires (+) to the positive wire of the Edu-RC on a parallel circuit. I then attached the white wire wires to the digital input pins on the board, and connected the blue wires to the digital ground pins on the board, and it works perfectly.
The only issue is that the optical sensors turn on before the robot does - when you plug the battery into the board, the circuit is completes and the optical sensors turn on, so you better not leave the battery plugged in. Oh, and the optical sensors tend to eat up the Edu-Bots batteries in about 15-20 minutes, if left constantly on.
Cool, huh? None of that external battery stuff
