Hello, I am a senior in high school and I am building an RC Blimp for our STEM class. To control the blimp we plan to have a servo motor with a rudder attachment connected to a Arduino Mini which is connected to an Xbee antenna (XBee Module - Series 1 - 1mW with Wire Antenna - XB24-AWI-001). This module would connect to our remote control which would consist of an arduino connected to a potentiometer and a Xbee antenna (same as before).
Where we need assistance is the coding required. None of us have any background in code and as a result we have no idea how to make all if it communicate. If you could point us to any resource that would help us learn this that would be great! Thank you for your time
Awfully heavy collection of parts.
Why not look into a Promini with 433 MHz Rx, and a microservo
and then 433 MHz Tx whatever Arduino you choose on the ground side.
Can use Virtualwire protocol to send simple turn left/right messages.
Blimps are not very responsive, so speed is not an issue.
http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/arduino/VirtualWire/
What are you doing for power? Bet the whole airborne side would run off a single 3.7V Lipo with a small boost converter from pololu.com to make 5V for the servo if needed.
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If you want something very small with built in 2.4GHz transceiver and a h-bridge look at these Deltino devices. And their Deltang parents work with an ordinary Spectrum R/C transmitter.
I use the Deltinos for radio control of N-Gauge model trains.
...R
I met a guy once who did a College Senior Project where they built a blimp programmed in Java that had GPS and programmed it to take off , follow a programmed course and then return to the launch site and land.