A First-Person Driving Experience With a Natural Steering Wheel

Playing with an RC car is fun. But what if you could shrink yourself down and sit in the driver’s seat of the toy vehicle instead? That’s exactly what Paul Yan has done, well sort of. The designer has created a first-person driving experience using an old PS2 wheel controller, two Arduinos, a tiny FPV camera, and a headset for a standalone monitor.

The RC car, which features an Arduino Micro, interfaces with the wheel using an Uno and a PS2 Shield. Both boards communicate via a pair of nRF24L01 modules.

The combination of a natural steering wheel controller and visual feedback directly from the car itself makes for a really compelling experience. The perspective is really novel and the scale magnifies the intensity of speed. It can feel like travelling at 300 mph, but at the same time, everyone who has picked it up can deftly control the car within minutes. It’s a lot more approachable than a drone. Who knows, with autonomous cars on the horizon, maybe this is how the joy of driving is preserved?

As awesome as this all sounds, wait until you see it in action below! You can also read all about the project here. Kudos to Adafruit for reminding us of this rad project!