Challenge Videos and Results

Pi Wars 2021 has come to an end with the live competition broadcast and results airing this past weekend. Aiden and I woke up at 6:20 AM on Sunday to catch the last few hours of the live stream and were able to see some impressive and creative robots and watch a few of the

All Done Pi Wars 2021

Aiden and I submitted our five Pi Wars 2021 challenge videos on Wednesday, June 23rd and now we await the results. The competition broadcast and results will be live streamed on July 11th. We can’t wait! We’ll post our final videos on the blog after that date. This has been an amazing experience! Aiden and

DIY Obstacle Course Challenge

For the DIY Obstacle Course challenge, we are required to build our own obstacle course featuring level changes such as ramps, different terrain, and many different obstacles for Roboty to tackle. We can complete this challenge by remote control or autonomously – we chose remote control. Aiden has gotten really good at controlling Roboty so

Up the Garden Path Challenge

For the Up the Garden Path challenge, Roboty needs to navigate along a path while being controlled using one of the allowed methods, which include remote control, a pre-programmed route (dead reckoning), line following, image recognition using a camera, or by issuing audio commands. The goal is to complete the maze as fast as possible.

Fish Bowl Spinner

For the Feed the Fish challenge, we can receive up to 150 additional points for decorating our fish bowl. We decided to stick with the underwater theme and add googly-eyed fish, seaweed, an octopus, a shark, and even SpongeBob and his pineapple house. It turned out really good! We needed a way to display our

Tidy Up the Toys Challenge

For the Tidy Up the Toys challenge, Roboty needs to pick up three colored blocks from one part of the arena and move them to a target box. The blocks are 5 cm wooden cubes in green, red, and blue. The kids did an excellent job painting them. We have five minutes to complete this

Feed the Fish Challenge

For the Feed the Fish challenge, Roboty needs to shoot 15 Nerf Rival balls into the top of our fish bowl to “feed the fish”. You can also attempt this challenge using standard Nerf bullets but we thought it would be easier to control the speed and trajectory of the Nerf balls. Plus, they match

Challenge Preparation

Now that Roboty can drive and talk, it’s time to focus on the challenges. The Feed the Fish, Tidy Up the Toys, and Up the Garden Path challenges require a walled arena and their own specific layout marked out on the floor. The Up the Garden Path challenge requires a fairly complex path with different

Roboty has Something to Say!

We’ve always wanted Roboty to be able to talk. Just the thought of building a robot that can talk “sounded” really cool! The process of making Roboty talk involves converting text into speech. Text-to-speech (TTS) is the generation of synthesized speech from text. Speech synthesis is the artificial creation of human speech. As shown in

Driving, Turning, and Tuning

Have you ever played a racing or driving video game on a console or PC with enjoyable and easy to use controls? We want Roboty’s acceleration, braking, and steering controls to be similar to playing a really good racing video game! It is important for us to have precise control over the steering and acceleration