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PiWars 2024: The Challenges and Their Challenges

There are seven challenges at the in-person event for PiWars 2024, each with their own problems to solve. They are split in to three categories: Autonomous only, Autonomous/Remote, Remote Only. For the second of those, if you are in the Advanced/Professional category you have to attempt the challenge autonomously. State of the Onion NE-Five exists […]

NE-Five (Re)design, Lessons Learned

One common questions I get asked about NE-Five is “is it open source” and I always give the answer “mostly…”, there’s a reason for that. The code has been available for a long while, along with a basic simulation that you can run in Gazebo, but the CAD model has never been shared. That’s becuase […]

Making the RedBoard Work on the Raspberry Pi 5

I’ve been using Red Robotics excellent RedBoard for years now, and while upgrading NE-Five to use a Raspberry Pi 5 I discovered breaking changes which means the available libraries wont work. Basically, the way that GPIO works on the Raspberry Pi 5 is different as it uses its shiny new RP1 chip to wrangle its […]

NE-Five is Going To PiWars!

I’ve been accepted to compete in PiWars 2020! I mean, 2024! As we all know, the theme of Disaster Zone for PiWars 2020 was more than a little prophetic as it was cancelled due to a global pandemic, happily though we’re getting another shot at taking on those zombies as they’re running the Disaster Zone […]

ESP32-S2 – Deep Sleep & The EN Pin

I’ve been working on a remote control for my cargobot, more on those little teasers soon, and I’ve been having an annoying problem with something that should’ve been simple. The Problem? Switching it on. The controller is running on a Sparkfun ESP32 Thing Plus which has an ESP32-S2 at it’s core. It has an EN […]

PiWars 2022!

So, for those who follow me on Twitter will know I’ve been accepted to PiWars 2022! The theme for this year is agritech, something I have a bit of experience with from my time at my old company. Here is a list of challenges, there’s three arena challenges plus a freeform obstacle course of our […]

Sneak Peek, Not ‘Armless At All!

Coming soon, a long awaited video showing full control of the arms! For early access, sign up to my Patreon at the £5 level and above and class for the support! https://ift.tt/37HvAve