What is Pi Wars?
Pi Wars is a non-destructive Raspberry Pi-based robotics competition with both autonomous and remote-controlled challenges. It takes place over one weekend and features teams of school students, family members and hobbyists as well as solo roboteers. The event is open to anyone on planet Earth! Find out more.
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Pi Cod and Chips for Dinner
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Team Leader / Mentor Introduction
After being successful in thier application, a team, made up of Caen School children, members of the Pi Code and Chips after school STEM club, are preparing to enter PiWars 2022.
Owing to COVID-19 restrictions the competition is being held 'virtually', each team will have to build a robot capable of taking on the numerous challenges, build the arena and challenge objects and then film thier attemots. All unedited videos will then need to be sent to the judging panel by the deadline for judging. Results will be announce during a live video feed in July 2022.
As the responsible adult (and previous competition entrant) the club leader 'Mr Harvey' will be acting as the team leader and mentor. The children will carry out as much of the competition preparation as they can, with steers from the mentor here and there.
The Competition
The competition is made up of 6 elements, all of which will be scored and the points added together at judging after which the placing will be announced, during a live YouTube streaming weekend.
Each of the four ‘active’ challenges can be completed either by Remote Control or Autonomously and there are various options available within each set of challenge rules. Here are the details, the links will take you to the Pi Wars web site.
- Shepherd’s Pi – guide your sheep into their pen, but avoid the wolves!
- Nature’s Bounty – harvest your crop of apples, optionally collecting them as you go.
- Hungry Cattle – satisfy your cattle’s appetite by filling the feeding troughs.
- Farmyard Tours – our obstacle course challenge is a fun ride for visitors to your farm!
- Technical and Artistic Merit – create a combined video to show off your robot’s design and features.
- Blogging (optional) – record your competition progress in text, video, image and song. (No, really… song!).
Team Name
For entry to Pi Wars 2022 the team had to choose a name and came up with "Pi Code and Chips for Dinner", a spin on the after school club 'Pi Code and Chips' that were entering in the competition. The club entred previously in 2018 however, this year, Mr Harvey will still be mentoring the team, but, although he will be offereing advice and assistance, the team members will be expected to do all the work. Success or failure is in thier hands!
Pi Cod and Chips For Dinner - Pi Wars 2022 Blog (Compiled by the Team Members)
Hello world! Welcome to this blog where we (me and my friend) will be documenting our (possible)EPIC WIN in PiWars 2022. So, if you are into coding/robotics this is for you This is just the beginning of this blog so expect more as we go on through this journey of building an EPIC robot!
Week 1
Today we well mostly me just fiddled around with coding and made an EPIC screen that said I like cheese (I know amazing right 🙄)
Week 3
Today we built some robots to test and help us learn about Robotics and to program using a langauge called Python. We used the CamJam Robotics kit which comes with a Motor Driver Board and is used to power two motors.
Week 5
This week I was sick so I missed club 🤢 however my FRIEND informed me that they programmed their robots to move... controllably!
Week 7
Today we started the new half term club and someone from year 6 joined the club and we got a NEW 3D PRINTER! And a new chassis for our robots.
Week 9
Today we nearly finished building our new 3d printer and I printed a trophy for my grandma (because she is the best). We will use this printer and our Prusa i3 to print parts for our robot and for the competition.
Week 15
Good day everyone I am (as you have guessed) the wonderful colleague of the usual blog writer. You may have noticed I am doing the blog more and more recently. My colleague, the usual blog writer has now retired and has been tasked to do the Technical and Artistic Merit video, which will soon be uploaded to this blog 😊, if he manages to finish it.
Week 17
Well time is running out and the Team Leader is trying to get us to do as much as we can (even at lunch times). The video is coming along slowly and we are having a bit of rouble with the robot. The PS4 controller won't stay connected via Bluetooth.
Week 19
We managed to finish painting the tree and making the magnetic apples tonight and Mr Harvey managed to get the robot working for us, so we are nearly ready. We also finished the sheep. With so much to do we are having an extra day on Saturday to see what challenges we can do.
Week 20 (Saturday)
Today we are trying to film Shepherds Pie and the Obstacle Course. Some of our parents have come in to help out.
Week 2
Today we mind mapped 🧠 plans for our robot for our (possible) EPIC win. We split into groups and all worked on different challenges.
Week 4
This week finished connecting up our electronics and programmed our robots to...move, by hacking their IP address, I know amazing right. Mr Harvey showed us how to access the Robots using the DeskTop Raspberry Pi's using a thing called SSH (Secure Shell), BUT we are not done with our robots yet we need to win.
Week 6
Today we got a bunch of new computers and laptops, which was exciting
Week 8
Today we started to build our new 3D printer that we got because for some reason you had to build which is a bit weird.
Week 10
Today Mahi typed up the code for our pi wars controller. It works!! The project on building the arcade machine is making considerable progress. They think adding the joystick🎮 is not challenging but holding the screws in place is hard. Jackson and kai were cutting out a cardboard tree for a challenge in the competion.
Week 11
This week we started to program the game controller for our Pi wars 2022 robot. Ronnie also started building the arena for Shepard's pie for pie wars and Kai is building a paper template of a tree for nature’s bounty also for PIwars 2022.
Week 12
Today, Ronnie looked for pictures of wolves and sheep for Shepards pi.
Week 13 - Unlucky For Some
Hi. I am not the usual blog writer nor his assistant (as mentioned in week 4 and 12) I am an alien from outer space🙂. Try to believe that there is only 3 of us and we are all year 6! 🎉woop woop🎉 Today, Jacob started on the obstacle course using TinkerCad and Mahi and MrHarvey are shopping for batteries. Then there's MEEEE! Doing this blog. Well, I am not anymore. GOODBYE FOREVER!
Week 14
Today the group all had a lesson in measuring, marking and sawing, in an attempt to make some wooden blocks for the sheep sheep and wolves for Shepard's Pie. I couldn’t because I have had an accident and broke my wrist.
Week 16
Not sure what we did this week?
Week 18
Well the tree has been made (less the apples, but we are working on them). We don't have a grabber, the robot is still not working and we haven't finished the sheep!!!
Week 21 (Last Chance)
Hi today we are trying the hungry cattle challenge and nature's bounty after the obstacle course and shepherd's pi which we did on Saturday. Yes, we were in school on Saturday. We were running out of time to do the challenges so we came into school to get some things done. THATS ALL FOR NOW FOLKS. GOODBYE👋
