LEGO Power Functions IR 360

Motivation

Enable enhanced LEGO Power Functions operation - by replacing the standard Power Functions IR Remote Control - with an Xbox 360 Controller (using Processing and an Arduino to generate the infrared transmissions).

Hardware

• LEGO 9398 4X4 Crawler (includeds controller, IR-TX) - LEGO.com | Brickipedia
• LEGO 8885 Power Functions IR Remote Control (IR-TX) - LEGO.com | Brickipedia
• Xbox 360 Wireless Controller (Or, any controller that appears to Processing as one.)
• A pair of Xbee radios (optional). This allows the Arduino to be mounted on the crawler.

Out-of-the-box Operation:

Power Functions IR Remote Control -> Power Functions IR Receiver

• Left Stick: Drive - Forward (1 Speed) / Neutral / Reverse (1 Speed).
• Right Stick: Steering - Right (1 Angle) / Straight / Left (1 Angle).

Enhanced Operation:

Xbox 360 Wireless Controller -> Processing -> Xbees -> Arduino -> IR LED -> Power Functions IR Receiver

• Left Stick: Drive - Forward (7 Speeds) / Neutral / Reverse (7 Speeds).
• Right Stick: Steering - Right (7 Angles) / Straight / Left (7 Angles).

Software:

Dependencies:

These libraries do all of the hard work:

• proCONTROLL Library for Processing - Source | Download
• LEGOPowerFunctions Library for Arduino - Source | Download

Releases:

1.0 - An Xbox 360 Controller replaces the included LEGO 8885 IR-TX.

References:

• Lego PF IR Protocol Documentation - Source | PDF
• XBee Series 2 Point to Point Communication - Tutorial