I have 2 problems that drive my wife nuts

1) I collect junk to make projects. I will collect junk for YEARS with a project in mind. I have totes and boxes (and a basement and a garage) full of junk for projects that are missing 1 or two bits yet before I can work on the project. I develop skills and collect junk for projects I don't intend to start for 10 years.

2) I dream up stuff. Literally dream about problems, projects, and whatnot. I am a very firm believer of 'sleeping on a problem' as I quite often will solve it in my sleep. This is part of the reason I shower in the morning right out of bed. Those solutions come to me and I am just awake enough to hold on to them for the day.

What all of this TMI boils down to, is that last night I dreamed I built a roomba vacuum cleaner out of an RC car. I've dreamed on this often since the roombas first came out. My 3d printer is actually a 'part acquisition' towards this goal.

What was different this time, is that I realized in the shower that I had all the parts to do it.

11 years of collecting junk. It took me 2 months AFTER the last piece was acquired before I realized I'd collected everything.

I can build my SAROV! A Semi-autonomous Remotely Operated Vehicle.

I can finally build the RC car I've been dreaming up for so long. One that is controlled by an regular RC controller, but has built in 'smarts'. Things like, you can't drive it into a wall. You can't drive it off a set of stairs, but you can jump it off the stairs. You can drive it around a track, and it will drive itself around the 2nd time. I can build some pretty neat steering and traction control modes. And the most interesting one, it can sweep my floor while I am driving it around.

Oh crud, I just realized my oscilloscope leads have been misplaced over the last 10 years… I hope I don't need them or I am sunk!

In album I’ve collected all the bits for my SAROV Semi-autonomous Remotely Operated Vehicle.

The last piece I need for a 15 year dream! I’d bought it at Radio Shack on clearance in September and didn’t realize that it was the last piece.

I have some old dusty batteries that are ‘junk’. This means they probably have a single bad cell in them. Time to cut them apart and make a bigger battery pack with the good cells.

My RC car collection. Well, of the non-toy variety. There are 2 cars and 2 trucks in this box. I’ve only got 1 good speed controller and 2 radio sets between the 4 at this point.

The speed controller is a racing unit, so it’s forward only. A bit frustrating for confined spaces.

The motor shield will be awesome as I just got reverse! It will be low-speed as it’s not NEAR big enough for the monster motors in these vehicles, but for the small space I have, that’s fine.

I am convinced I can place an arduino in between the receiver and the speed controller and run this car via remote control or by code on the arduino.

Basically a bare chassis. I don’t have enough Electronic Speed Controllers (ESC) to go around, so the motor shield would be useful here. Receiver to arduino, and have the motor shield provide the power to the motor.

This is my main truck. I spent a LOT of time painting it up. I just love this thing!

Yeah, I am a dork. I glued an old CPU to the truck body. Now I can make good on the premise and have a computer control the vehicle after all these years!