James Bruton Uses the New Arduino UNO Q to Steer a Car with His Face

Qualcomm’s acquisition of Arduino has dominated maker news over the past couple of weeks, with many in the community expressing concern over the effect that might have on the beloved company. But we are getting something cool out of the deal: the Arduino UNO Q. That is Arduino’s first single-board computer (SBC) and it is further enhanced by the inclusion of an STM32 microcontroller. James Bruton demonstrated how well those ingredients meld together by building this little electric go-kart that he can steer with his face.

If you don’t count the Intel Edison and Galileo (they weren’t Arduino products), the UNO Q is the first SBC from Arduino. That would be exciting all on its own, but the UNO Q gets even more interesting when you consider the STM32 microcontroller. It is like Arduino shoved an SBC and a microcontroller development board together into one package, then made it really easy for the two halves to talk to each other. Instead of using both a Raspberry Pi SBC and an Arduino development board in a project, makers and engineers can turn to the Arduino UNO Q to do it all.

That’s great on paper, but Bruton’s little electric vehicle illustrates how it works for a real project. As he is wont to do, Bruton constructed a completely new rideable contraption for this showcase. It is a small car made of 3D-printed parts and strong GRP (Glass-Reinforced Plastic) tubes. Both rear wheels are driven by hefty brushless motors through belt gear reductions and two DC gearmotors rotate the input shaft of the steering rack.

The inclusion of the Arduino UNO Q is where the project gets really interesting. With the microcontroller “side” of the board, Bruton was able to direct the motor drivers — just like he normally does with an Arduino Mega 2560. But then he was able to use the SBC side of the board to run an Edge Impulse AI model that recognizes his face’s position within a video frame. If he leans, his face moves in the frame and the AI detects that. The SBC side of the board then tells the microcontroller side of the board to adjust the steering accordingly.

The best part is that, according to Bruton, it was really easy to do, as Arduino put a lot of effort into making communication between the two sides of the board as seamless as possible. Combined with the App Lab, which lets users quickly set up complex systems with minimal programming, it appears that the car’s behavior was a snap to implement.

Bruton demonstrated the face-controlled car at the Arduino “From Blink to Think” event, where he also gave a presentation on his work with Arduino. But for those of us who weren’t able to attend that event, the video serves as a great overview of what the Arduino UNO Q is all about.