Depending on where you live, it may or may not be legal to own a tank, but if you’ve got panzers on the mind, try starting out with something like Mellow Fire’s Raspberry Pi-powered tank Zippy.
Some of the best Raspberry Pi projects we’ve come across use remote control features but the most exciting ones integrate a camera. This bad boy zips around with a camera mounted right on top of the body.
If you’re interested in recreating the tank, Mellow Fire was kind enough to share all of the details from hardware and software to how it all goes together. The tank is controlled by a Raspberry Pi Zero W while an L298N Mini operates the 3V - 6V gear motors. The housing is largely based on a tank model created by a designer named Tim Clark.
Everything is powered by an 11.4V RC Li-Po battery, which helps keep things mobile, but the web server makes the unit remotely accessible. The web-based controls are hosted on the same Pi used by Zippy.
Mellow Fire even managed to integrate an Xbox One controller into the project. It's used to drive the tank around. You can check out the code used in this project at Github.
If you want to take a closer look at Zippy’s inner workings and see it in action, check out the full post on the official Mellow Fire website.
This isn’t the first project by Mellow Fire we’ve covered, he recently built a Pi-powered soap dispenser and has more home automation projects on his website.
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Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.
