Robots

The Final Countdown

Things We Built
The Final Countdown: A Melodic Send-Off As the countdown to Pi Wars 2024 reaches its final moments, Team CyberWar stands at the precipice of a journey that has been as exhilarating as it has been enlightening. Today, we share not just another milestone in our saga but a testament to the creativity, technical prowess, and sheer determination that has propelled us forward: our artistic and technical video submission. The Rhythm of Resilience In a fusion of technical merit and artistic expression, we’ve created a video that does more than showcase our robot’s capabilities; it captures the spirit of our team and the adventure we’ve embarked upon.

Return of the Carriage

Things We Built
Serial Saga: Decoding the Mystery Byte In the vast and intricate world of robotics, every byte matters, and a single misbehaving bit can lead to days of troubleshooting. Our recent odyssey with the SerialTransfer library, is a testament to the meticulous nature of debugging complex systems. This post recounts our journey through the frustrating, yet ultimately enlightening, process of identifying and resolving a bug that nearly stymied our project’s progress.

Zombie Slayer: Engineering Precision for the Apocalypse

Things We Built
Engineering Precision: The Odyssey of the Ball Flinger In the world of robotics where theory meets practice, the journey from conception to completion is seldom a straight line. As we ventured into the realm of the undead for the Zombie Apocalypse challenge at Pi Wars 2024, our quest to develop the ultimate ball flinger attachment epitomized the iterative process of engineering innovation. This post delves into the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of bringing the ball flinger to life, underscoring the relentless pursuit of precision and performance.

Firmware's Final Furlong: Racing to Refine Our Robotics Roster

Things We Built
Pi Wars 2024 Project Update: Navigating the Final Stretch As we edge closer to Pi Wars 2024, with just five weeks remaining, the intensity and excitement within Team Cyberwar are palpable. The flurry of recent progress on our firmware, marked by a barrage of successful Pull Requests, beckons a pause to reflect on the journey thus far and map out the final leg towards our ultimate goal. Lava Palava: The Path to MVP and Beyond Our journey through the molten challenges of Lava Palava has brought us to the cusp of a significant milestone: an almost-ready-to-merge branch teeming with sophisticated waypoints code.

Palette to Podium

Things We Built
Artistic Aspirations: Unleashing Creativity for Pi Wars In a pivot from our traditional focus, Team Cyberwar is delving deep into the artistic realm for Pi Wars 2024, aiming to harness a blend of aesthetics and technology for an unforgettable presentation. Recognizing the potential for a substantial points haul, we’re embracing a holistic approach to capture both the judges’ imagination and a hefty slice of the available points for artistic merit and embodying the most disastrous theme.

Echoes & Edges: Mapping Moves

Things We Built
Pinpoint Precision: Choreographing Our Robot’s Every Move Localization is the linchpin of autonomous navigation, allowing robots to discern their location and navigate complex environments. Our journey in Pi Wars leverages advanced localization techniques to surmount various navigational hurdles. The Localization Landscape Odometry serves as our primary gauge of movement, albeit with a caveat—accumulating errors. It’s a straightforward reflection of motion but requires correction over distance. Landmark Navigation Landmark navigation relies on recognizable features within the environment to determine a robot’s location.

A Smooth Turn: Mapping Success in the Labyrinth of Waypoints

Things We Built
Navigating the Future - Milestone Achievement in Waypoint Navigation Charting New Paths We’ve hit a significant milestone in our journey towards Pi Wars domination: the successful implementation of advanced waypoint navigation. This breakthrough allows our robot to traverse a series of predefined x,y points with precision, marking a leap forward in our strategy for overcoming the Minesweeper, Lava Palava, and Escape Route challenges. Speed and Precision: A Balancing Act One of the standout enhancements in our latest navigation code is the ability to set different speeds for each waypoint.

Zany Zappers: Zeroing in on Zombie Zapocalypse

Things We Built
Conquering the Zombie Apocalypse: A Journey Through Innovation and Strategy Welcome to our latest update on the journey to Pi Wars 2024, where our team is gearing up to face the thrilling Zombie Apocalypse challenge. With creativity, technical prowess, and a dash of sci-fi flair, we’re excited to share the progress of our robot’s specialized attachment designed to take down the undead with precision and style. The Challenge Ahead The Zombie Apocalypse challenge tasks our robot with clearing zombies from the Pi Wars Tower.

Barrel Ballet: Steering Through the Eco-Disaster with Grace and Grit

Things We Built
Navigating the Eco-Disaster: A Manual Prelude to Autonomy In the heart of our preparations for the Eco-Disaster challenge at Pi Wars, we took to the arena in manual mode, a crucial step before unleashing our robot autonomously. This challenge, a test of precision and speed, requires our robot to distinguish and sort barrels of ’toxic slime’—a task demanding both agility and strategy. In our manual test of the Eco-Disaster challenge, the “Virtual Ackermann” steering showcased exceptional maneuverability, laying any concerns to rest.

Challenges with first test drive of new chassis and pcb

Things We Built
Navigating the Challenges of Innovation – A Week with OSoD This week has been a whirlwind of progress and challenges for Team Cyberwar as we forge ahead with our Pi Wars contender, Overwhelming Surplus of Diggity (OSoD). With a blend of breakthroughs and technical hiccups, our journey exemplifies the dynamic world of robotics. Progress Highlights: Wiring and Assembly Completion: Robert has meticulously finished the wiring for our new chassis and PCB, setting the stage for a pivotal moment in OSoD’s development.