let us mind the same thing...

Philippians 3:7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. 8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; 11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. 12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. 16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. 

the narrow path...

Tested out the rover on a mission to the end of my driveway. I was curious to see if the GPS and compass positioning was accurate enough for the rover to successfully navigate a 12' wide road. Set 13 "waypoints" in mission planner for a total travel distance of 214 meters. I walked along with it (just in case) but it was on its own and not receiving any inputs from me. The rover did a good job although it got a little close to the edge at one point. I think I need to adjust the steering trim a bit. It followed the mission quite accurately and stopped right where it was supposed to - so overall, I was very pleased with the performance. This is where I got the controller hardware.  95,101,70,0,B

Extended cab...

90,98,71,0,B

life in the slow lane...

Finally got the rover to run a waypoint mission successfully. After everything I went through, it turned out all I needed to do was reverse the steering. (At least I think that was what the problem was...) 92,99,74,0,B

Back to square one...

I've screwed around with all the parameters so much; the rover behavior was getting worse instead of better.  So I decided to start from scratch by re-flashing the firmware on the Pixhawk.  As usual, I found a video describing the best way to do this.  Unplugged everything from the microcontroller, removed the micro SD card, and reformatted it.  The system wouldn't let me simply download and flash the same vehicle firmware.  Instead, I had to download a different vehicle first to erase the existing firmware - then do it again to erase that vehicle and put Ardurover back onto the microcontroller with all the default parameter settings.  And so it goes... 91,101,73,0,B

lots to sort out...

94,99,67,0,B

baby steps...

Took all day yesterday to get the rover functioning (sort of).  Just getting it to light up correctly was pretty rewarding and I actually got it to move a couple of times the way it was supposed to.  Pretty steep learning curve for me here - very little about this is intuitive at all.  There are over 600 different "parameters" that can be adjusted - depending on the type of vehicle and remote controller being used and all the functions required for operation (it took 2 hours alone just to figure out how to program a 3-way switch on my RC transmitter for manual/auto/return to home).  I think I spent more time searching for answers on the internet than I did physically working on the project.  After almost giving up on them, it was about 8PM when I finally got the telemetry radios to talk to each other.  It took a very long time to figure out that I needed to find and install the correct drivers for them and set up the correct com port and baud rate for data transmission.  They are used to wirelessly communicate (300-meter range) with the rover from the ground station software called "Mission Planner" loaded on my laptop.  Along with the ability to adjust all the parameters, Misson Planner allows me to see the position and speed of the rover in real time on a Google Earth map and program the microcontroller (Pixhawk 2.4.8) on the rover to go to specifics points autonomously via its onboard GPS and two compasses.  Different versions of the same controller and software are also used for DIY boats, planes, and various forms of "copters".  The big plus for me is that my project is just a slow-moving ground vehicle and can't fall out of the sky.  90.98,73, .15",B