Remote controls share the same Frequency. Teacher's Note

In the classroom, there will be more than one car of the same type. All the remotes work at the same frequency. So how do you control more than one car?

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01 Feb 2018
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Radiofrequency

The car is controlled with a remote. All remotes for the same car are the same. Actually, all the remote controls for this type of cars are working on the same frequency. When two cars are placed in the same room and you try to control them with the two remote controls you are not sure which control will communicate with which car. Basically, you can not control the two cars. You can do the following experiment. Take one of the controls and start two of the cars. Press forward on the control. Both cars will move forward.

Leave the students to find this on their own

Do not prepare the students for this. Leave it to them to find it on their own. Let them think and discuss for a while. Just ask them to compete with the cars and solve the first task.

At the end, we will have all the cars controlled because we will use the Phones

One of the achievements of this course is that at the end we would have a remote control for every car and this remote control will be the phone. Do not forget to mention this to the students. The protocol of the current remote controls is very limited. At the end of the course, we would have a much more precise and powerful communication protocol. We would have a single phone communicating with a single car and sending much more information even though we would be using again "radio frequency"

Courses and lessons with this Tutorial

This Tutorial is used in the following courses and lessons

Perfect STEM course. Module 1 - Smart Car with Raspberry PI

Disassemble a remote control car. Change the brain of the car with a smart computer like Raspberry Pi. Build a smart device with artificial intelligence that you could control from your phone and that could freely navigate itself in the real world and on the Internet. Use your hands. Develop programs for your robot and your phone. Be curious and invent.

The perfect course lives up to its name. You move through the content, we check it and return feedback to you.

In the end, you should be able to better understand how to program and design smart devices that would make the world a better place. For everybody age 12+, 16+, 21+, 35+, etc. The hardware costs about 150$. It changes through the years so it might take some time for you to find it as Raspberry PI, motor drivers, power banks and h-bridges.. they change. Note that the course was designed to be led by a teacher with a decent knowledge in embedded hardware and software. This, on the other hand should not stop you, if you are curious.