A low-cost, easy-build buggy that has a mind of its own!

This project was designed to provide an interesting and entertaining project for young craft and technology students. At first glance it is a simple two-wheeled buggy, but its responses to signals from its three sensors make it appear to be surprisingly intelligent. The mechanical design described has been kept as simple as possible so that basic components can be used, but other hardware can be adapted to run from the same circuits – providing plenty of room for experiments.

To keep the assembly simple, the electronic control board was designed to use the bare minimum of components, and the smallest PIC microcontroller that would provide sufficient inputs and outputs. The final design uses the PIC12C508 8-pin microcontroller, demonstrates some interesting PIC programming and hardware techniques, and has a performance that would be expected from something much more complicated.