Arduino Nano Every brings Knight Rider sound effects to Knight Rider RC car
KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) was a fictional car based on a 1982 Pontiac Trans Am in the Knight Rider television series. KITT featured an artificial intelligence, voiced by the legendary William Daniels, and some iconic styling. Savall21 built a replica RC KITT and used Arduino boards to add sound and light effects that he can trigger with the RC transmitter.
This is a custom RC car created by Savall21 using a Tamiya TT-02 kit and a resin 3D-printed body shell. The controller/transmitter is a Jumper T18, which has a customizable touchscreen interface. Savall21 programmed his own widget for that touchscreen. It mimics the fictional KITT control panel and lets the user select different sound effects and activate the iconic headlights. The T18 sends commands to an FrSky XR8 radio receiver located in the car.
The FrSky receiver communicates with two Arduino Nano Every boards via the S.Port. The first Arduino controls the sound effects, which play through a DFPlayer Mini MP3 player module. The FrSky receiver simply sends a numerical code to the Arduino, which then activates the corresponding audio clip. The second Arduino drives a strip of WS2812B individually addressable RGB LEDs for the headlights and taillights. The user can control the headlights directly, while the taillights automatically come on any time the throttle is below 50%.
For fans of Knight Rider and RC vehicles, this is the ultimate project. The car looks fantastic and the Arduino effects add polish to the build.