The WiiKart, a wireless go kart

Whoops… Looks like we covered this already. My mistake.

In case the name didn’t tip you off, this fun little kart was inspired by MarioKart. The goal was to build a functional go kart that could be controlled via the Nintendo Wiimote. They did a pretty good job and kept it fairly simple too. They designed a frame that vaguely mimics the shape of the carts in the game. The steering is handled by a 4″ stroke linear actuator. This was initially hooked directly to the tie-rod, but they found it to be too slow. Their solution was to put a lever in between the two with a 1to 3 ratio. This made everything much snappier.

Though they were capable of implementing PWM on the motors in their hardware, they opted to stick with full on, full off because of the push-button nature of the controller. The connection and communication are handled with an Arduino and they don’t mention what bluetooth module they use.

You can see in the video below it is fairly responsive and has more than enough power to lug a passenger over some varied terrain.

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Converting a manual camera lens to use motorized zoom and focus

[Guy] wrote in to share this motorized camera lens project he recently finished. He really loved the zoom lens, but since both zoom and focus are manually controlled, he sometimes had trouble getting both set to the right place in time to take the shot. With modern DSLR cameras which allow video capture, he also wants to have the option of a smooth zoom that is always in focus. The solution was to add motors to the rings and control them with a Wii classic controller.

This hack really shines when it comes to the add-on hardware. He has some beautifully made rings which wrap around the focus and zoom rings on the lens. They are then held in place by a timing belt. These belts have teeth which key into the gears on a pair of servo motors. From there it’s a snap to drive the motors with an Arduino, connecting to the Wii controller with a breakout connector. You can see [Guy] showing off the build in the clip after the break.

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