Adventures Building a Self-Driving RC Car (opens in new tab)

(rahulrav.com)

173 pointsrahulrav6y ago42 comments

42 comments

If anyone here is interested, check out https://diyrobocars.com or https://diyrobocars.com.au in Australia. I organise the DIY Robocars events in Australia (and we are looking for a sponsor). I'd also recommend joining the Donkeycar and DIY Robocars Slack groups which is where most of the discussion happens in between events.

keyle6y ago

I got really excited but then the site was a bit of a let down... forms to fill, missing guide... meetup last October...

kregasaurusrex6y ago

The Jetson Nano provides a very fair amount of computing power for AI applications like this- I've been following JetsonHacks[0] for a while and there's some neat projects posted on the site. The site owner's Youtube channel[1] also goes into detail on interoperability across the TX series such as cameras, code libraries, and assembling a car based on MIT's open-sourced Racecar[2] built with a TX2.

[0] https://www.jetsonhacks.com/2019/03/25/nvidia-jetson-nano-de...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQs0lwV6E4p7LQaGJ6fgy5Q

[2] https://racecar.mit.edu/platform

rahulravOP6y ago

JetsonHacks is pretty great.

LukaD6y ago

Your page can't be scrolled with the keyboard and it's missing the native scrollbar. You should remove those overflow rules from the body and .content div.

rahulravOP6y ago

Apologies. This is a new blog I am working on. Will fix it.

HeWhoLurksLate6y ago

It can, you just have to focus the body element (IE click somewhere on the page) first.

thesmok6y ago

It also breaks the Reader mode in Safari.

aresant6y ago

If you have even a peripheral interest and are in the Bay Area come to the meetup / race referenced - all are welcome!

It’s surprisingly fun and they serve an awesome BBQ lunch - both me and my 7 year old son enjoyed the program immensely -

https://www.meetup.com/DIYRobocars/

mcshicks6y ago

We also have a fun one in San Diego. You can find your local one here (or how to start your own!)

https://diyrobocars.com/local-meetup-groups/

NikolaeVarius6y ago

Looks like NYC one might be dead?

cheeko12346y ago

https://github.com/markku-ai/donkey-vis

Donkeycar neural network model visualization built to "see" how the AI sees.

Tepix6y ago

Donkeycar is a fantastic project and it got a whole lot better with the recent release of Donkeycar 3.0.

Keep it up guys!

thowthisaway6y ago

That freaking awesome! I was thinking about making a self driving RC car with image recognition to hunt down some rabbits in my yard, maybe you can help me with that!

Great job man, great job!

ModernMech6y ago

I've been thinking about the same thing but for deer. They keep eating my bushes in the middle of the night, so I'd like a little patrol car to chase them away.

paisleyrob6y ago

My mother has found the a motion detector water sprayer works great for this application. Deer comes by and they're sprayed with water.

It looks a lot like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Hoont-Blaster-Repellent-Activated-Spr...

allannienhuis6y ago

Mine is named Max. He's a good boy. :)

AtlasBarfed6y ago

I want to make the same thing.

But for humans.

From the Earth.

hoytech6y ago

Not to be that guy, but is it still an "RC" car if it's self-driving? :)

gist6y ago

I will take the 'that guy' crown from you. I am thinking what is self driving if the video shows it going off the track and not slowing down for the curves. This reminds me of back in the day with slotted race cars that if you didn't pay attention they flew off the track.

This is not to say that it's not admirable but I was not as impressed as I think I should be when someone is doing self driving.

rahulravOP6y ago

The rules of the race are that you can't cut corners from inside the track. Going out of the track is a natural penalty, so it's allowed. The car actually slows down a bit.

The ML algorithm being used is called behavioral cloning (and it's cloning me). It's just that I am a pretty rusty RC car driver :)

1 more reply

tehlike6y ago

It is probably getting commands from a workstation/desktop.

typon6y ago

This is ethical application of AI I can get behind

m3at6y ago

Cool project! Thanks for sharing

Two questions to know a bit more:

- how long did it take you to complete that project?

- what is the rough total cost?

rahulravOP6y ago

My first car took about a week. The second one took a day. The total BOM was around 400$.

Note: I am not great with hardware.

singularity20016y ago

What took you so long the first time or: did you reuse compiled code the second time?

1 more reply

transistor-man6y ago

Awesome project! Are there build details about getting everything running on the Nano? Do you have a block diagram or interconnect schematic that you could post? Thanks!

rahulravOP6y ago

Yes. Join the Slack channel. We can help you out if you have questions.

agumonkey6y ago

Tiny self driving vehicles could be fun and safe way to transport small things. Think an army of cleaning drones gatherings trash to a collection point.

Elpomm6y ago

Definitely. I just hope licensing and regulation don't make it prohibitive, it would be fun even for personal use as well.

joncrane6y ago

So a roomba?

ModernMech6y ago

More like Wall-E

agumonkey6y ago

generic roombas, tangos

parentheses6y ago

You mentioned

> Having read some amazing books on machine learning ...

Which books did you read and what was your experience with them?

rahulravOP6y ago

The ones I really enjoyed reading were:

https://www.pyimagesearch.com/deep-learning-computer-vision-...

https://www.machinelearningisfun.com/

and

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Learning-Python-Francois-Chollet...

Indronil6y ago

my one can be found here its simple and still a work in progress https://github.com/aetar will try to implement yolo3 later project name road trip

NetOpWibby6y ago

Watch Dogs 2

jonas_kgomo6y ago

George Hotz, former apple device jail-breaker left Tesla to start working on Self-Driving Cars, the DIY approach. So far he has been training the cars with HD Maps and has had decent progress considering his competition. http://comma.ai

zyang6y ago

That's a lot of mis-information. Hotz exchanged some tweets with Musk but never worked for Tsla. Comma uses cameras, not HD maps.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

42 comments

diyrobocars6y ago

keyle6y ago

I got really excited but then the site was a bit of a let down... forms to fill, missing guide... meetup last October...

kregasaurusrex6y ago

[0] https://www.jetsonhacks.com/2019/03/25/nvidia-jetson-nano-de...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQs0lwV6E4p7LQaGJ6fgy5Q

[2] https://racecar.mit.edu/platform

rahulravOP6y ago

JetsonHacks is pretty great.

LukaD6y ago

Your page can't be scrolled with the keyboard and it's missing the native scrollbar. You should remove those overflow rules from the body and .content div.

rahulravOP6y ago

Apologies. This is a new blog I am working on. Will fix it.

HeWhoLurksLate6y ago

It can, you just have to focus the body element (IE click somewhere on the page) first.

thesmok6y ago

It also breaks the Reader mode in Safari.

aresant6y ago

If you have even a peripheral interest and are in the Bay Area come to the meetup / race referenced - all are welcome!

It’s surprisingly fun and they serve an awesome BBQ lunch - both me and my 7 year old son enjoyed the program immensely -

https://www.meetup.com/DIYRobocars/

mcshicks6y ago

We also have a fun one in San Diego. You can find your local one here (or how to start your own!)

https://diyrobocars.com/local-meetup-groups/

NikolaeVarius6y ago

Looks like NYC one might be dead?

cheeko12346y ago

https://github.com/markku-ai/donkey-vis

Donkeycar neural network model visualization built to "see" how the AI sees.

Tepix6y ago

Donkeycar is a fantastic project and it got a whole lot better with the recent release of Donkeycar 3.0.

Keep it up guys!

thowthisaway6y ago

That freaking awesome! I was thinking about making a self driving RC car with image recognition to hunt down some rabbits in my yard, maybe you can help me with that!

Great job man, great job!

ModernMech6y ago

I've been thinking about the same thing but for deer. They keep eating my bushes in the middle of the night, so I'd like a little patrol car to chase them away.

paisleyrob6y ago

My mother has found the a motion detector water sprayer works great for this application. Deer comes by and they're sprayed with water.

It looks a lot like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Hoont-Blaster-Repellent-Activated-Spr...

allannienhuis6y ago

Mine is named Max. He's a good boy. :)

AtlasBarfed6y ago

I want to make the same thing.

But for humans.

From the Earth.

hoytech6y ago

Not to be that guy, but is it still an "RC" car if it's self-driving? :)

gist6y ago

This is not to say that it's not admirable but I was not as impressed as I think I should be when someone is doing self driving.

rahulravOP6y ago

The rules of the race are that you can't cut corners from inside the track. Going out of the track is a natural penalty, so it's allowed. The car actually slows down a bit.

The ML algorithm being used is called behavioral cloning (and it's cloning me). It's just that I am a pretty rusty RC car driver :)

1 more reply

tehlike6y ago

It is probably getting commands from a workstation/desktop.

typon6y ago

This is ethical application of AI I can get behind

m3at6y ago

Cool project! Thanks for sharing

Two questions to know a bit more:

- how long did it take you to complete that project?

- what is the rough total cost?

rahulravOP6y ago

My first car took about a week. The second one took a day. The total BOM was around 400$.

Note: I am not great with hardware.

singularity20016y ago

What took you so long the first time or: did you reuse compiled code the second time?

1 more reply

transistor-man6y ago

Awesome project! Are there build details about getting everything running on the Nano? Do you have a block diagram or interconnect schematic that you could post? Thanks!

rahulravOP6y ago

Yes. Join the Slack channel. We can help you out if you have questions.

agumonkey6y ago

Tiny self driving vehicles could be fun and safe way to transport small things. Think an army of cleaning drones gatherings trash to a collection point.

Elpomm6y ago

Definitely. I just hope licensing and regulation don't make it prohibitive, it would be fun even for personal use as well.

joncrane6y ago

So a roomba?

ModernMech6y ago

More like Wall-E

agumonkey6y ago

generic roombas, tangos

parentheses6y ago

You mentioned

> Having read some amazing books on machine learning ...

Which books did you read and what was your experience with them?