Introduction

This semester, I spent time researching and designing a motors lab for ECE 476 taught by Bruce Land. When I took the class in the Spring of 2002, we barely scratched upon the surface of motors with respect to microcontrollers. So when Professor Land offered me the opportunity to design a motors lab for the class, I was quite intrigued; this would give me the chance to learn something new about microcontrollers (I love working with them) that we had failed to cover that I thought was a major part of microcontrollers. What made the research more interesting was the fact that I would be modifying a race car set so that it would be controlled by microcontrollers. The main idea is that the microcontroller would adjust the speed of the race car depending on its position on the track. This would be accomplished through the use of Pulse Width Modulation and Hall Effect sensors.