R/C wifi car update

An update on the status of the r/c car:


We are now in the planning phase of this project. We have also added another member to the group doing it. Between the 3 of us, we can split up the cost and get more ideas. Once we introduced our new guy to the concept, he loved it. He also gave us some good ideas that we will probably implement.
The first thing that we plan on doing is replacing the laptop we were going to use as the websever with a tiny computer. The motherboard will be one of those little Intel Atom boards that are about 7 inches by 7 inches. I love these things because of their size, power, and that they have USB, a PCI slot, and serial and parellel on them. Oh, and an ethernet jack. So we plan on making the ethernet jack and the PCI slot in to 2 wireless interfaces. then the phidget controller will go over USB, and the webcam will go over USB as well. Serial and parallel can be used for sensors or other microcontrollers. Depending on how the car looks when we get it, the motors may change. In either case, we will probably end up with an extra spot open on the phidget. For $45, we are using every spot no matter what. One of my ideas for a use was a model rocket launcher. Like an emergency flare or something. Or defense :). We also need batteries for it. That is the only weakness with using that computer. We think it draws around 50 watts, but I bet we can get it down by running minimal command line linux. The thing that will suck up the most power is going to be the wireless interfaces. All it has to do is run some C code, host a very small http server, a very small ssh server, and deal with the hardware. We also plan on sticking some wifi antennas on. There are a couple of tutorials on line that show how to make your own wifi antennas, so I want to try some of those before I spend like $50 on a nice omnidirectional antenna. We also planned on adding speakers to it. I don't know, I just have this image in my head of a pink barbie car driving down the street with several hundred dollars worth of electronic gear on it with several giant antennas sticking our blasting "I'm a Barbie Girl". I wonder if the cops would be called? In that case, it probably needs an LCD screen in the front so we can explain to people via skype what this thing is.

There is still the possibility of making it autonomous, or at least semi autonomous. I definitely want to write some scripts over the break that will automatically scan for wifi networks and connect. I think I should be able to modify an autoconnect script and add in a bit to flag wep encrypted networks and call a function to crack them and then connect to them. It would actually have to be fairly complex because it will have to decide which network is best, all availible networks would have to be ranked and then attempted to be connected to in that order. It also should have a safeguard in case the signal gets too low so we can turn around before it gets stranded.

If anyone reads this and knows bash scripting well, help. email is aloishis89 at gmail dot com.

I will post later this week on the stuff I worked on over spring break.