RC independent of the OI

Hi, I’m one of the programmers on team 612. We’re currently working on a baby-walker type project for a young boy who was born disabled. The project was started last year and there is a possibility for a new one this year. One of our current limitations that I have tried to eliminate is in order for the RC to function properly (or at all for that matter), the OI needs to be plugged in. We’ve rigged up a nice joystick-OI-radio package, but it is still required to be plugged in (or powered by some 9-volts) by the parents whenever their son wants to use his walker. We’ve been trying to find a way to have the RC independent of the OI (i,e, not have the RC wait for a signal from the OI’s radio), but still be able to have the joystick control it when needed. So far we’ve come up empty handed, is there any suggestions that anyone can give us? Maybe we should contact Innovation First directly? Any help would be great! Thanks

-Team 612

How about the 2004 Mini-RC? Or a Vex controller?

Just as long as the programming is in C, it’ll probably be okay. We’d prefer to use the 2005 controller if we could.

Set the Team # to 0000 (using tether and OI). The RC will run in Autonomus mode all the time according to this FAQ . The control joystick will probably have to be modded to plug into the RC.

P.S. Congrats on the Chesapeake Chairman’s Award.

you could also build the OI into the walker thing so that the RC and OI are always tethered and then just hook up the joystick when needed, unless you are trying to eleiminate the OI all together then go with what lucas said.

Thanks for your suggestions, I think we’ll try setting the team number to 0000 and see how that works. I’ll keep up on any other issues we need help on, thanks!

I have not actually tried it, but i beleive that even with team number 0000, you still need the OI. Do you have an EDU RC? That will work on its own.

If somebody wants an adventurous project, i bet it would be difficult but within reason to hack the EDU master firmware to work on the full size RC.