So it is now just 6 days to go until the Sunday of Pi Wars. This is the last weekend to get things sorted before the big day. So we’ve been frantically 3D Printing and testing.

For the Somewhere Over The Rainbow challenge we were concerned about the way the course was going to be lit. There was no confidence that illumination would be even and that our robot would not cast shadows onto the ball (It’s a pretty tall robot). So we have added some LED lights to the camera side of the robot to hopefully give the camera a better view and to ensure the robot is not thrown off by shadows. We have yet to test this though!

The golf attachment has been through a few revisions as it was found to be very difficult to control in testing. The printer is beavering away right now printing out the new parts.

The Duck Shoot stuff is all working great. Shame it is taking up the majority of the internals of the robot though. Space is tight inside there!

The Minimal Maze challenge is working fine. We are just praying for no bright sun on the day as this will ruin everything as we have not had time to fit any backup sensors.

The straight line speed test works fine. We are not going to be the fastest robot out there (I’ve seen some videos of super fast competitors). However, we are confident we will get from one end to the other without touching the wall so will at least collect some points.

Finally there is the obstacle challenge, which is mainly down to practise as well as Pi Noon.

All in all we have had a bloody good crack at this competition and although we are not fully prepared as we hoped we would be we should be a strong team. Fingers crossed for the day. It will be great fun and we are all looking forward to it. I am personally looking forward to getting my life back past Pi Wars and have the time to get on with some of my own personal projects. The last 8-9 months or so has been dominated by Pi Wars and it will be nice to finally get it done and get things back to normal.

However, I now have some fantastic new skills since starting the Pi Wars competition that will be invaluable for some of my up and coming projects and for that I am very grateful.

Hope to see you all in Cambridge next week. Please come along and support us !

 

With just 10 days to go till the Sunday that we are competing in Pi Wars, panic is now setting in. We have to admit we are not completely ready and really need another few weeks to get things right. However, we don’t have that luxury. There are 10 days to the competition and considering 6 of those are work days meaning only a few hours in the evening are available during the week, plus once we set off for Cambridge on the Friday any chance to work on the robot after that will be very limited indeed. So this coming weekend is really the last chance to do as much as possible on the robot. After that, time has ran out.

Where did all of that time go? It was way back in 2017 that work started on the robot and thinking we had plenty of time. All of a sudden we are in headless chicken territory and needing more time.

So this is a brief status update on where we are as of today :-

Chassis – Happy with the chassis and we’ve added a little bit of bling to make it look less like an RC car and more like a robot.

Straight Line Speed Test – Not confident about this challenge. Using ToF sensors only so we are weather dependent on this one. No time to add in backup sensors.

Maze – Same as above. Good results in testing but praying for overcast skies on the day.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow. – Robot performs well in testing. Again, lighting conditions on the day that differ drastically from those in testing may be our downfall.

Obstacle Course – This one is entirely down to the skill of the driver. The robot is fast and maneuverable. Hoping to do reasonably well on this one.

Pi Noon – As above. But we are up against formidable opponents so don’t expect to win. Hoping to get at least half way through the rounds though.

Golf – Attachment works reasonably well in testing. Luck and driver skill will need to be on our side.

Duck Shoot – Hoping to do well in this one. We have a nice Nerf Cannon. But then so do other teams so again, speed and luck are required here.

Blogging – We’ve definitely done better than most teams as a lot haven’t even bothered. Hoping for good scores here.

Artistic Merit – Hoping for some points here as we’ve put some effort into making it look good.

Technical Merit – Hundreds of hours have been spent in Fusion 360 and with the 3D printer on the robot. Almost every single plastic part on it was designed from scratch with many iterations in the R&D phase till we had working versions. The Nerf Cannon in particular went through many changes till we got what we wanted. Hopefully high scores here.

So, we are not expecting to win any challenges, but will be trying our damnedest to do so. No matter how we do on the day, I am sure it will still be great fun and I am walking away with some great new skills with Python, OpenCV, Fusion 360 and 3D Printing that will be very useful for up and coming personal projects and those with Medway Makers. It will also be great to put some faces to names of those we have been speaking to on the Pi Wars Discord channel and on Twitter. One thing I’ve loved about the active guys and gals on Discord (not including the ‘lurkers’) is the willingness to share information and help each other, even between competing teams. This sums up the spirit of Pi Wars and the Raspberry Pi community as a whole and I applaud every person involved in this great hobby.