We have just learnt that our application for Pi Wars 2018 has been accepted. We are, of course, very happy about this. Especially as we have been working on a robot for a little while now and it would have been such a shame to have done it all for nothing. This will be our very first Pi Wars and, quote rightly, we are entered in the Beginners section. Although we are a Makerspace, we do not have an official space, meeting up in members houses instead. Although 2 members have a 3D printer of their own, Medway Makers as a group does not. We also do not have access to laser cutters, lathes or any other specialist equipment that a Makerspace or Hackspace might have. The Pi Wars team is therefore made up of enthusiastic individuals putting their own time and effort, plus use of their own personal equipment, into the project to make it successful.

Now it is time to review the challenges and decide how we are going to approach each one. We will, of course, keep you updated on our progress.

So, earlier in the year Medway Makers decided we would form a team to enter the Pi Wars competition in 2018. Mike McRoberts gathered a bunch of people who expressed an interest at one of the regular Medway Makers meetings.On that day there were 7 people who wanted to be part of the team. Since the we have had several meetings to work on and plan the Pi Wars robot and unfortunately only two people keep turning up; Tom Sparrow and Mike McRoberts. So, the team is now a two person team. Despite it being only two people, those two people are very enthusiastic and have the skills and necessary to design and build a great Pi Wars robot. We also now have Mike’s 3D Printer at our disposal and so can print bespoke parts if required.

Without knowing what the 2018 challenges were going to be, we decided we would design a robot capable of tackling the 2017 challenges, as at least then it would require fairly minor (hopefully) changes to the design once the challenges were announced. We decided on a mid sized chassis and four wheels. We discussed tracks and six wheels but decided that 4 wheels seemed to be popular on the majority of successful Pi Wars robots and was therefore an obvious choice. It also kept cost and complexity to a minimum.

We have, since then, tried out various wheel and tyre combinations, as well as several motor controller boards and batteries. We seem to have a good combination of battery and motor controller now, but would like to try out a few more wheel and tyre designs, perhaps 3D printed versions.

The chassis will, I am sure, go through several more iterations before we are happy with it and then there are the design and coding challenges we will face once we know what we are up against in the 2018 competition. Watch this space as we discuss our progress in designing and building this robot.

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