Help - Hardware suggestions for programatic PWM

[QuestionHungry]

I had an apostrophe today and I want to build a crazy rig with inputs and outputs that can all be controlled by a fancy piece of software I'll write. I have no electronic experience past crashing my RC into a tree.

There's a motor driven car. I'm hoping to use some simple contact sensors to calibrate where the car is on the track and how fast it moves from point A to point B. With this information I can then design a program that can figure out how long must I keep the motor running at a given speed to reach the desired location on the track.

With the aforementioned inputs the software will always know where the car is and this will allow me to make requests like this: "HAL, please use 50% motor speed and move the car to the 78% mark of the track" Are there a few kits that can be pointed out to help in this adventure?

I'm familiar with C# but I'm open to grabbing a python based option since the community for that is probably much larger. Motor Voltage needs are probably 1V to 12V. All low RPM.

-> Last Question "If this becomes a Wonderland hole I may opt to pay someone to line up the hardware and maybe help design the rig. Where can I find Electronic Tinkerers For Hire?

Thanks!

 

[(*steve*)]

Look at stepper motors. They will allow you to make a reasonable conversion between steps and distance, but errors will accumulate unless you can periodically reset your location to a known place.