Parts: an overview

There’s a lot of, and I mean a lot of parts when it comes to building an RC car on your own. But in the context of building a self-driving RC car, here’s a brief overview of some of the stuff we’ll need:

You'll want to have:

  • A RC car (with some batteries)
  • A PWM/Servo Driver (I2C + some jumper cables)
  • A Jetson Nano
  • A powerbank (+ some usb cables)
  • A microSD card (and optionally an external SSD)
  • A WiFi/BT m.2 card (key E) or some USB equivalent
  • Some tools and materials for building the chassis (and optionally access to a 3D printer)
  • An Xbox/PS/PC gamepad

Let’s focus on the RC car (and the batteries) part for now.

What RC car should I get?

You can basically get any RC car, as long as it has an ESC controller, or you can hook up one to it.

Some parts are more important than others, but here’s a overview of the parts we’ll be focusing on:

  • Scale
  • Body type
  • Electric motor
  • Servo
  • ESC
  • Receiver
  • Batteries