Looking to pay someone to write an arduino "follow me" code using the arduino pieces that I currently have. I'm a beginner and the project is a bit advanced for my time frame. I want my rc car to follow me wherever I go. If interested let me know and I will go into more detail.
Hi lavellhicks,
I think your plan to break the project into smaller pieces is an excellent idea.
What sensors do you plan to use? How will the car know where you are?
Pat.
I think a mechanical device is the simplest and most accurate way to make a follow-me cart. Think of a retractable dog leash but much lighter, with a rotary encoder and potentiometer will measure quite well direction and distance between cart and the person pulling it.
using the arduino pieces that I currently have.
That presumes that the pieces that you have are appropriate. Without knowing what those pieces are, I, for one, am not willing to agree that they are appropriate.
OP: please tell us what pieces you already have, what method your device will use to follow someone. After all - you could accomplish this without any arduino at all simply by attaching a dogleash and dragging the thing around. If that's not what you had in mind, to even decide whether or not I might be able to do your coding, I have to know what you are thinking of.
Apologize for the late response but i want the car to use GPS to always know where I am. So far I have two bipolar stepper motors, arduino uno, and an adafruit ultimate gps logging shield for the car. (a motor shield as well if needed but highly doubt it). I have a ultimate gps breakout and an arduino pro mini to be used for the tag.
The GPS is quite inacurate. It will follow you when distances are greater than few (3-5) meters, but
- it won't follow you exactly, any nearby obstacles (like when you pass through a gate) might not be avoided,
- GPS signal may be shadowed in certain places - near trees, tall buildings, indoors.
- you didn't mention a communication means between tag and follower.
I guess, optical IR-receiver 36kHz IC on servo-motor - will scan the space.
and ultrasonic distance meter will show you the distance.
IR transceiver can be on enother arduino (on you).
Not as concerned about objects in the way. But I am concerned with the accuracy. IR receiver sounds about right as long as it can reach up to 45-50 yards
I'm willing to change the hardware. Just need someone to take the project on.
But I am concerned with the accuracy
Being concerned without mentioning what accuracy has to be, is not very useful.
Not as concerned about objects in the way
That's a strange environment. Can you be more specific about
- what this environment is
- how close the vehicle should follow its target
the project is a bit advanced for my time frame
It might be for anyone, what is the time frame?
A couple ultrasound sensors + triangulation might be useful, eventually with IMUs to compensate for ultrasound's inconsistent reliability (but hopefully without).
Without details about vehicle and its environment no one can tell what are the chances to solve it in an unknown time frame.
Just to toss in another wrinkle - you mention significant distances (and possibly terrain), suggesting the car may get up to a modest speed while looking for you and navigating/approaching.
You need to handle the steering angle, acceleration & braking as well as obstacles and distance to calculate any meaningful navigation strategy. Also consider movable challenges - a dog, stroller etc.
Running over those distances for an extended period of time at speed will require substantial batteries (=weight), so larger motors (=larger batteries = larger motors=larger batteries...) may be needed.
Is this simply a toy to follow you around while you play soccer, or a planned project with an end goal (excuse the pun!). We need more info, as well as your location, as that may rule out contributing to your learning curve.
This is almost exactly what I'm looking for. I want a cooler to follow me as I walk from my truck to the softball field, beach, etc. I'm an experienced licensed electrician, and a chronic tinkerer, so I can build and wire the thing easily, and I have boxes and boxes of Arduino and Raspberry Pi hardware and sensors sitting around. I simply don't have the expertise or time to code and program the thing (having twins a few years ago sort of halted my learning this stuff).
My plan is to use a 3-wheeled setup. I will either have one motor to drive the rear wheels and a servo or actuator to turn the single front wheel, or use a motor on each rear wheel and steer by stopping or slowing one motor at a time. That stuff is easy enough for me to handle, but how to make it follow me is what I'm having difficulty with. It will be used in the open and as a sort of novelty, so obstacle avoidance, complex navigation, and high speed won't be terribly necessary. I would think a beacon (IR or ultrasonic) would be the easiest thing, but I don't know how to code it. I'm trying to do this fairly cheaply, hardware-wise, but I'd gladly pay some one of you experts out there to write the code for me so I can just upload it and maybe reverse engineer the thing a bit as I learn. Thanks in advance.
How much you willing to pay? That sounds like a pretty involved undertaking. Won't be cheap.
What is the magic that caused this topic to be
read 1600+ times? 
romalomey:
What is the magic that caused this topic to be
read 1600+ times?
First two words of the title.
Delta_G:
First two words of the title.
hahaha, damn right
Delta_G:
How much you willing to pay? That sounds like a pretty involved undertaking. Won't be cheap.
Well, that's a little vague, but name your price and I'll consider it. Obviously there's a tipping point where it's just not worth it, but I'd definitely like to get this done. I had sort of figured that someone a little more versed than myself would be able to find existing code somewhere and I could build to match it. Failing that, I didn't think it would be too difficult for one of you experts to write up. If it's too much for you to reasonably take on then so be it, but I'm very interested in making this and seeing how it works.
rfowler416:
Well, that's a little vague, but name your price and I'll consider it. Obviously there's a tipping point where it's just not worth it, but I'd definitely like to get this done. I had sort of figured that someone a little more versed than myself would be able to find existing code somewhere and I could build to match it. Failing that, I didn't think it would be too difficult for one of you experts to write up. If it's too much for you to reasonably take on then so be it, but I'm very interested in making this and seeing how it works.
I'm sorry. Perhaps you don't understand this negotiation. I asked you first. How much are you willing to pay.
This sounds like it will be a lot of work. It gets tiresome all the people who come in and want me to spend hours coding and if I quote it any more than $20 or $50 then they run off. So I want to know if you're serious about paying to have this done or if you think this is going to be cheap. I want to know if it is even worth my time to try to think about quoting it.
How much money (in hundreds of dollars) are you willing to spend on this?
I usually ask for something like $20 - $30 per hour for development stuff like this. And I see many many days of work on this, plus the debugging. The code might not be that hard, but there could be a LOT of hardware debugging to do.
Delta_G:
I'm sorry. Perhaps you don't understand this negotiation. I asked you first. How much are you willing to pay.This sounds like it will be a lot of work. It gets tiresome all the people who come in and want me to spend hours coding and if I quote it any more than $20 or $50 then they run off. So I want to know if you're serious about paying to have this done or if you think this is going to be cheap. I want to know if it is even worth my time to try to think about quoting it.
How much money (in hundreds of dollars) are you willing to spend on this?
I usually ask for something like $20 - $30 per hour for development stuff like this. And I see many many days of work on this, plus the debugging. The code might not be that hard, but there could be a LOT of hardware debugging to do.
My sincerest apologies. I was of the mistaken understanding that you were the expert and I was the prospective customer. It doesn't sound like you're interested in doing the work, but thank you for responding anyway. Had you been interested I would have been willing to pay two "hundreds of dollars", provided that it worked properly and was delivered in a timely manner. Of course, I would prefer that the service be rendered without so many smartass remarks, as I already have a reliable local supply of those, so in your case I would deduct at least .5 "hundreds of dollars" for each such remark. I understand that the time investment may be significantly more than I had imagined, but then, that's why I'm the inquirer and you're the expert. There doesn't seem much harm in asking. Thank you!