35 Days To Go

It is now only 35 days to go until the Sunday Pi Wars day and the pressure is mounting. The reality is, we need more time, another 3 months would be great. The reality also is, we don’t have that luxury. Pi Wars is in 35 days whether we are ready or not.

We made some good progress on the Nerf Cannon this weekend and (finally) have a design we are happy with after many iterations. The gun has plenty of power and the addition of the laser sight will help with aiming.  The problem now is finding where to mount it. The chassis is a total mess and needs sorting out. So, I am frantically printing out parts to hang things under and off the sides of the robot to make more space up top to mount the Nerf Cannon and Pi Camera. The attachments for the golf course and the maze sensors will go at either end and around the sides.

We are getting there slowly but things now need to pick up pace. Tom has been busy working away building our test courses whilst Mike cracks on with the 3D printing and coding. Considering it is only a 2 man team, we’ve done really well and have a half decent robot. Looking at what some of the other teams have built it is clear we are up against some very tough competition. As our first entry into Pi Wars as a maker-space we do no expect to  come near the top 10 but will do our best to get as many points as we possibly can. We have certainly learnt a great deal and will be far better equipped to tackle the competition again if we decide to enter another year. Plenty of valuable lessons have been learnt.

However, no matter how we do I am sure it is going to be a great fun day on 22nd April. Even if we don’t win any challenges we’ve learnt loads of new skills and I am now very proficient at building working parts in Fusion 360. The skills I’ve learnt in the Pi Wars build will go a long way towards my own personal ‘Earth Rover’ project which I plan to start once Pi Wars is out of the way later in the year. Tom is picking up tons of Fusion 360 skills which he plans in using to assist with his kids school projects. These are the main rewards of entering a competition like this, the experiences you can take away from it and put to use elsewhere in your life. We are really looking forward to Pi Wars. See you all there!