[Imetomi] found himself salvaging a camera from a broken drone when he decided to use it in a new project, a tracked robot with a live video feed from the mounted camera.

… I had a cheap Chinese drone that was broken, but its camera seemed to be operating and when I took apart my drone I found a small WiFi chip with a video transmitter. I (decided) that I will use this little circuit for a project and I started to buy and salvage the parts.

Being a tracked robot, it can negotiate most types of terrain and climb hills up to 40 degrees. It is powered by two 18650 lithium-ion batteries with a capacity of 2600 mAh and the remote control is based on the HC-12 serial communication module. You can control it with a joystick and watch the camera’s live-stream in a virtual reality glass. That’s pretty neat but it’s not all.

[Imetomi] also used a hacked Nacomimi Brainwave Toy to make a brain controlled version of his robot. The brainwaves are detected using sensors placed on the scalp. To actually control it the operator has to focus on the right hand to move right, focus on the left hand to move left, blink to move forward and blink again to stop. There is also an ultrasonic sensor to help navigation so the robot doesn’t bump into things. It’s not very precise but you can always build the joystick version or, even better, make a version with both controls.

We covered an Arduino brain computer interfaces way back in 2009 and the suggestion we made was a brain controlled beer bot. But this is quite cool too. You can find the build instructions here. If you build one, lets us know how the brain control works for you.

[via arduino.cc]

After the Bike Tachometer we posted back in September, Nikus  shared with us a new Instructable to show you how to build remote-controlled tank using a first person view (FPV) camera and Arduino Leonardo:

At the beginning I build only RC tank without FPV camera but when I was driving it in the house I have not seen where it is. So I came up with that I will add to it the camera mounted on a 2 servos. The range is about 100m, you can also ride with it at home. With this tank you can see what your cat is doing when you’re not looking. You can see it on a video

Watch it in action and follow the tutorial:

[nickatredbox] keeps up to date with the improvements of his project [yellow plane]. As you can find on this blog, the project is evolving week by week. Let’s see what’s today submission

1200 mm Wing space
280 mm cord
14% Clark Y
Target AUW 1300 Grams

Missing battery and camera box have a design which should weigh 140 grams empty.
The assembly shown below weighs 684 Grams no motor or electronics.
Electronics shown weigh 110 grams ESC Arduino board, Xbee, antenna and Gyro board
Motor & prop another 120 Gram

Here you have a [video]  and there you can follow the project on the [website]