Pi Tank

Story so far:
Got the tank controller board from SparkFun from here:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11561

Chassis from here:
http://www.rapidonline.com/design-technology/arexx-rp5-ch02-robot-tank-chassis-13-1194
[Great company - shipped me a whole new chassis 2 days after a motor died, no questions asked!]

Soldered the board together, using rusty soldering skills. Can you solder rust?

There was a minor problem where there were supposed to be 3 resistors of 1 size, and 4 of the other, and in fact the SparkFun kit had them round the other way...  Off to Maplins again, for quickness...  Bought a kit of several hundred assorted sizes for £8.

Extra things needed - the board above needs the male power plug.  Ordered 2 pairs from Ebay
MALE 2.1MM X 5.5MM DC POWER CONNECTORS
Free delivery in 2 days, awesome:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PK-OF-2-X-MALE-2-X-FEMALE-2-1MM-X-5-5MM-DC-POWER-CONNECTORS-for-CCTV-REPAIRS-/171468892245?ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:GB:3160
 - until then, I'd made do with some spare wires soldered to the underside of the power jack: it's centre-positive, so black lead to the rear of the jack, red to the front.  

Needed rechargeable batteries - bought from Maplins, as they have a good reputation.  

Also have an Edimax USB wifi dongle:
Edimax EW-7811UN 150Mbps Wireless Nano USB Adapter - worked out of the box, unlike 2 others - that were bought from Maplins on a whim, without having researched them..  WiFi on the Pi's always been fiddly in my experience - just buy something that works!

and a Bluetooth keyboard:
QK-90015 ULTRA MINI KEYBOARD
http://cpc.farnell.com/qwerty/qk-90015/ultra-mini-keyboard-pad/dp/CS23874 - works well, but not good for gaming as it seems to be confused by multiple simultaneous key-presses.  But hey, it looks like a steam-rollered BlackBerry, so not really aimed at gamers anyway!

And a Pi, of course - the Model B.  Running NOOBS Wheezy.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/


Build instructions:
https://github.com/simonmonk/raspirobotboard/wiki
And, it works!  Basic remote control from the keyboard is fine, but I've had to start it while tethered to the screen so I can get the code running, and then disconnect it after that.  Working on finding the equivalent of the AUTOEXEC.BAT, but not fixed it yet... Finding it unexpectedly hard.

To do - 

• get the camera working, and figure out how to do both control and simultaneous camera streaming. 
• Examine range finding, and also how plotting an area would work, as well as how it would deal with partial objects - eg chairlegs, rather than walls.