RUSTY - Cardboard Tank

Arduino | Rapid-prototyping

Rusty is a remote-controlled cardboard tank I made for one of my university subjects using Arduino. He can move, look around and shoot. The inspiration of the name came from its clunky movements and brown appearance.

The pandemic posed significant challenges to available materials and tools. Provided with an Arduino starter kit, I made design decisions based on the resources I had accumulated with my interests in personal projects and the allocated budget for extra resources.

I’ve always enjoyed playing with remote controlled vehicles and making projectile mechanisms out of cardboard like crossbows. Combining my two interests, I decided to build a remote controlled tank. To make the experience even more enjoyable, I’ve also gamified the tank and set goals for the user to complete, this creates an engaging and iterative physical interaction.

The Build

Movement is enabled by motors connected to an Arduino and powered externally through a battery.

Potential energy is stored in the rubber band connected to the hammer. When the servo rotates, it releases the chopstick hammer, letting it slide into the black barrel, hence firing the ammo. Manual reloading is required.

Remote control is made with a Wi-fi module, joystick, buttons and sound sensors to give users different ways of controlling the tank. The sound sensor is used to activate the firing sequence of the cannon, encouraging the user to yell a command at the tank.

To engage the user with the tank, the experience was gamified by introducing a timer which starts when the user first moves. Here, the shortest time used to eliminate all objectives is the winner, whether it's the user's own personal record or competing with friends.

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