Project 0 Self Driving Car (Need batter suggestions)

[Anthony Malary]

Hello all, 

In this email I've attached my PDF for my spec for the self-driving car that I am going to build if you guys could respond to this email with the battery suggestions you all gave last meeting so I can add them to the list of items to buy and begin building. Also feel free to critique my project plan and recommend if I should make the project simpler seeing how I am a beginner. 

Best Regards, Anthony Malary 

[Chris Albertson]

The subject line reads “self-driving car”.  That is not a one-person project, even if you work full-time for many years.   But then I read the PDF.  This is a classic hobby-robot project.  A line following floor bot. — MUCH easier.

The hardest problem self-driving cars have to solve is predicting the future actions of other road users and, of course, route planning.  But the floor-bot does not need to deal with that.    

The hardest part of this project will be training the neural network.   You need tons of data taken in different conditions.        It is easy but takes hours.    Well, it can be easy so long as you don’t want to handle the case where the car loses the line and needs to find its way back to the track.   One thing you can do to cut the training time by 2X, 3x, or 4x is to install 2, 3, or 4 cameras each with a slightly different position, tilt and aim point.  (Or use data augmentation to simulate this)  After training, you go back to just one camera, but mounting an array saves you a lot of driving time.   And yes, for training, you do want to move the camera after a few laps.    You don’t want to over-train; you want the model to generalize.

As for battery, I like the ones made for drones.   You get the best power-to-weight that way.  They came in all different sizes and voltages.  But you need a specialized charger and to know a little abnout batteries.   But performance and cost are good.    If I were building a “real” outdoor robot that was going to be reliable and easier to use.  I’d use DeWalt or some other kind of power tool battery because they are easy to charge and swap.  Buy whatever brand you already use.   You get the best quality and reliability by far

You are going to want decent battery life because you will need to drive this robot for hours to train the model.   

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RSSC-List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rssc-list+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rssc-list/8eb1c5c0-943f-4a7a-92ff-112847bfdeb4n%40googlegroups.com.
<Project 0 Self Driving car.pdf>

[John Davis]

Agreed, this is a "classic hobby-robot project", but it reminded me of a Lego League training challenge that was a microscopic step up towards greater reality. I built a one-lane 'bridge' with a line down the middle; the kids' challenge was for two autonomous line-following EV3 robots to approach the 'bridge' from opposite ends and negotiate so that each could cross over safely. (They figured it out.)

John F. Davis
(310) 961-2196 (cell)

https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rssc-list/34A63862-0C34-4729-9A2E-3D20CD814686%40gmail.com

.

[Chris Albertson]

> On Jan 12, 2026, at 11:23 AM, John Davis <jfd...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Agreed, this is a "classic hobby-robot project", but it reminded me of a Lego League training challenge that was a microscopic step up towards greater reality. I built a one-lane 'bridge' with a line down the middle; the kids' challenge was for two autonomous line-following EV3 robots to approach the 'bridge' from opposite ends and negotiate so that each could cross over safely. (They figured it out.)

That is a great idea. Makes line followimng a little harder. Next maybe the line can branch and merge like railroad tracks and thew car could decide which “fork in tbhe line” to take.

[Sergei G]

If you are going to use power tools batteries, consider "<brand name> battery adapter":

Best Regards,

-- Sergei

---

From: rssc...@googlegroups.com <rssc...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chris Albertson <alberts...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2026 2:03 PM
To: John Davis <jfd...@sbcglobal.net>
Cc: RSSC-List <rssc...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [RSSC-List] Project 0 Self Driving Car (Need batter suggestions)

 

> On Jan 12, 2026, at 11:23 AM, John Davis <jfd...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> Agreed, this is a "classic hobby-robot project", but it reminded me of a Lego League training challenge that was a microscopic step up towards greater reality. I built a one-lane 'bridge' with a line down the middle; the kids' challenge was for two autonomous line-following EV3 robots to approach the 'bridge' from opposite ends and negotiate so that each could cross over safely. (They figured it out.)


That is a great idea.  Makes line followimng a little harder.       Next maybe the line can branch and merge like railroad tracks and thew car could decide which “fork in tbhe line” to take.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RSSC-List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rssc-list+...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rssc-list/C1A4FA28-EF8F-46FC-9D6D-2D1282A6AB24%40gmail.com.

[Anthony Malary]

The eagle has landed y'all ! I will start assembling it later tomorrow afternoon which is exciting ! I do think after maybe another kit or two I will look more into make everything from scratch and break things and gradually get to the point of being a true builder ! 

[Alan Timm]

Oh Nice!

That looks like a fun kit.  I can't wait to see what you do with it.

imho you made the right choice.  Kits are an amazing way to get started, and there's a world of possibilities from there on out.

I'd love to get a closer look at it at our next meeting?  :-)

Alan

[Brian Weisbrod]

DonkeyCar; self-driving car

Hi, here are links to old videos showing my Donkey car in action - sort of, just a test.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN-IMk5M-Uo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UHyPurcXiY

I'm selling my DonkeyCar, or parting it out, depending on whether there is any interest.  

--

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RSSC-List" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rssc-list+...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rssc-list/8eb1c5c0-943f-4a7a-92ff-112847bfdeb4n%40googlegroups.com.

--

Cheers,

Brian
http://polewolf.blogspot.com

[Anthony Malary]

Yeah it's pretty dope I"m 93% the way through of assembling it and it should be good to go by tomorrow. Now I can wait to program it and get it going really ! Also for sure ill bring it to tomorrows meeting ! 

[Anthony Malary]

I saw these videos I'm curious about what the training process was like ? Was it difficult or very straight forward ? 

[Brian Weisbrod]

I used two batteries on my DonkeyCar.  They're both RC hobby batteries.  One was to drive the car and the powered the Pi.  The logic was that you don't want to lose all your models loaded into the Pi when the car runs out of the main battery, or you replace it.  

I recorded videos as I drove the car, transferred the videos to a laptop to create the Tensorflow models/pilot, and loaded that back into the Pi.  That was because the Pi wasn't powerful enough to compute the pilot in a reasonable amount of time.  I've read that some are now.  

Driving the car to train the models was the most awkward part.  That's because the Pi has to see the steering and throttle data first, before the car.  But there is at least one fix out there for that now.  

[Brian Weisbrod]

Correction: that was "the other powered the Pi".