Gobabygo New Zealand is in it’s third year and is made up of a small group of 5 friends, We are sponsored by Rotary, Zyber and BMW cars so all our toy cars look like X5 BMW’s.
We would love to be able to adapt a car with joy stick control so all and any help is very much appreciated.
We also want to find more kids to give cars to, our main age group is 1 to 6 but we have given cars to small 8 year olds.
Have a great day being the best you can
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So cool to see a post from down under! The joystick modification is an important one since so many kids have difficulty steering. Our FIRST Robotics team (FRC 1939) did one last year with a VEX Robotics rack gear and motor to turn the wheels and used an Adafruit trinket as our controller. The link to the Instructables we made is HERE and also posted under manuals. Please let us know how your build goes. It was a challenge, but really fun for us!!
Thanks Gavin, Our cars come with a digital remote and the cars already have a motor on the steering. So we need to figure out how to build and connect the joystick, I will have a look at how you have done it and hopefully it is an easy fix, Thanks
The joystick we used was fine, but for this application you might want something sturdier. Might have a look at these: https://na.suzohapp.com/products/joysticks/
Also, could you post a link to the cars you use with the power steering? It was a pretty involved process to add power steering to the car we did.
Hi Gavin, This is the model car that we use, http://www.bbjtoys.com/goods.asp?product_id=573
we get all the extras, blow up tires, leather seat, mp3 player, radio, digital remote and buy a container at a time which is 78. hope this helps.
We also have a website http://www.gobabygo.org.nz/ and we are on facebook https://www.facebook.com/gobabygonz/
HI! Are your cars 6 volt or 12 volt? With the built in remote, does it run a separate stepper motor in front to steer the car, while a single back motor propels the car, or are there 2 motors in the back?
Also, instead of hacking the car, have you considering modifying the remote?
Hi, Cars are 12 volt, with a steering motor and 2 motors,one on each back wheel. we have played around with the remote to use as a joystick but the parents quite often want to use the remote and have a joy stick for the child, Thanks
Do the wires go from the switch to the board, and then to the motors? I played with a little car called a Space Rider- had 2 motors in the back, but ran on 6 volts. It has a remote as well, but the remote steers thru the back wheels. Despite what an engineering friend said, I was able to wire a digital joystick by removing the switches, giving it fwd, right turn (right wheel reversed) and left turn (left wheel reversed). I wanted to maintain the remote control feature, and didn’t want to gut the car and add a new board that could run both. It was pretty simplistic, but achieved what I wanted. I would think you could do something similar to this by just messing with the wiring. Do you have a wiring schematic?