Nothing like a contest to inspire activity!

This is my first attempt at a public blog, hope you enjoy it! I will post some info about myself a bit later, but first I want to cover a project I'm really excited about.

After getting 3D RC Racing to work on my machine (was a rogue USB device acting like an input device for DirectX's directinput) I wanted to embark upon a RC style controller project so the game could be played as intended. I could easily buy one but this way I save some money and get to continue my learning.

The ironic part about this is that the device preventing me from playing the game (until I figured it out) is the same device that I will be using in this project, namely a pic microcontroller programmer. I've been slowly teaching myself how to use the pic and this will be a nice project to continue that.

I'll be using a losi micro-t transmitter as the base, and I plan to capture the wheel/trigger positions as well as the steering and throttle trims and dual rate. Once I combine all this in the pic micro, I will send the data on to the PC in the form of serial data. I've already found some software to receive this and emulate a joystick that will work with the game, specifically PPJoyCom.

I will post some pics when I get further in, but so far I have opened the transmitter and ID'd the spots I will be needing to connect to in order for the pic to gather the data. I have used serial in conjunction with the pic micros in the past so that part is all ready to go.