Category: Uncategorized

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 challenges again next year!

PiWars 2020 was the first one I’d been accepted in to and for me was literally life changing. Four years later I’ve almost got the robot built that I wanted to compete with back then, and I’m also early in the process of trying to turn NE-Five in to an actual product. Stay tuned for more information on that one!

A cute little robot with two arms and glowing eyes
NE-Five, as he currently looks,

To recap, the challenges are as follows:

  • Lava Palava
  • Eco-Disaster
  • Escape Route
  • Minesweeper
  • The Zombie Apocolypse
  • Pi Noon
  • The Temple of Doom

There are also meta challenges in the form of the blogging, technical and artistic merit, and most disastrous robot challenges. These are background to the main competition with them being judged either before hand or at the event.

Two images side by side, on the left a coloured depth image showing how far away items are, and on the right a colour image from the camera
On the left, a depth image created using the stereo cameras. On the right, a raw image from the left camera for comparison.

Both me and the robot have grown a lot over the intervening years, if PiWars 2020 had taken place I’m not sure how many of the challenges I’d actually have been able to manage, I was in the intermediate category back then so could at least have attempted them all with manual remote control. This time around I have a vision system that works and a pair of arms that have loads more feedback and control than the hobby servos I was using in MacFeegle Prime.

Time will tell, but if I can beat my personal best of completing 50% of the challenges I’ll call it a win!

PiWars 2021 – At Home!

PiWars 2021 has just been announced for the end of March next year with a conference in January, both taking place online!  For the competition in March we’ll be given a course to build using household bits and bobs and will need to send in a video showing our best time a few weeks before hand.

This isn’t just limited to people who have already entered for 2020 either, the competition is open to new entrants!  If you’re interested in having a go, head over to for more information and I’ll hopefully see you (virtually) on the day. 🙂
https://piwars.org/pi-wars-2021-press-release/ 

A Slight Distraction…

I’ve been planning on building an electric skateboard for a while, that’s where most of the scavenged cells will be going, and while I’m waiting on parts for NE-1 I thought I’d get started.

It’s not robot related so it’ll be mostly covered on my Facebook page, link for those interested.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3185305014921504&id=288180951300606

New Plan… Enter The Rover 5 Chassis!

The plan for the NE-1 is to build a robot that is very versatile that anyone can build for cheap. In theory a clapped out Roomba makes sense but realistically they’ve probably had a hard life already and are broken in a number of incredibly subtle ways…

For a beginner this will lead to frustration and has an increased chance of giving up, as I have done on many occasions with this blasted (or sucky?) vacuum!

To that end I’m switching to the Pololu Rover 5 Chassis, this has either two- or four-wheel drive depending on the version you get and each motor has an encoder too.

I got mine from Cool Components, not sponsored but they’re just solid as a supplier, and for £45 it’s a bargain. The benefit of the door wheel drive model is extra power and the versatility of being able to switch to omniwheels. These allow the robot to move in any direction and I’ve wanted to play with them for a while.
https://coolcomponents.co.uk/products/rover-5-robot-platform?_pos=1&_sid=c080a4b19&_ss=r 

After learning about the issues with interrupts I’ll be switching to a Teensy too, they are a lot more powerful and every digital pin is interrupt capable.  As I’ll have a lot more encoders to deal with this will be ideal:
https://coolcomponents.co.uk/products/teensy-4-1-development-board?_pos=1&_sid=403d66ded&_ss=r 

The plan is otherwise the same, use off the shelf parts to make a simple but versatile robot.  The parts should be delivered this week and I’ll get a video sorted as an intro.

One thing to mention, my plan for phase two includes building an open-source robot hoover so we’ll get back around to that next year. 🙂

Battery Harvesting

47 out of 56 turned out to be great! One pack had suffered water damage and had to be disposed of.  I’ll be using these across various projects, shortly on the Roomba, and they’ll be incredibly useful.   I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for more, the packs the grey cells came from especially.  A good few hundred quids worth easy as they’re almost all over 2.5Ah and essentially cost what you all pledged last month so thanks for giving me the power to continue!  

Yeah, the puns aren’t going to get any better and I apologise for nothing! 🤣