Forest Fighters Pi Wars 2021

With the final videos edited, uploaded to YouTube and submitted via the neat form, Forest Fighters has made its entry. We got caught out by the requirement to show the robot dimensions so we had to add a still image to the first part of the video. The new render features this image as part of the lead-in, as you can see we are within the dimensions although the gripper needs to be fully open to be under the 400mm allowed but is well within the 500mm over length allowed when it is closed. Here is Audrey III sat in the start box to tidy up the toys. Audrey has taken a bit of a pounding over two Pi Wars so, if we are lucky enough to compete again, she will be retired and we shall try something new. The most complex challenge was the Up The Garden Path and the most stressful was Feed The Fish. However, they've all have been fun to do.  We send endless thanks to Mike, Tim and David for their awesome work and we're really looking forward to a fantastic results weekend.

Three video's in the bag and two to go. With the final submission date just around the corner we have been practising our driving skills for the challenges we still have to video. Here is a clip of our Feed the Fish setup. The ball contraption works well and the code has been modified to use the triggers on the controller to launch Audrey forward at top speed while simultaneously opening the contraption to send the ball forward when she stops sharply. Keen eyed observers might spot the similarity to the golf ball device used by Tractor Bot in the Golf challenge from 2017 and 2018. It was so good that we thought of it for the Feed the Fish challenge as soon as golf balls were mentioned. Credit to Keith's Pi Tutorials (@PiTutorials) of Ipswich Makerspace for the original STL. 

Part of the recommendations for the video submissions for each challenge, is to arrange for the video to have a timer overlay, like you might see when a sporting event is shown on TV.  We have been using kdenlive ( https://kdenlive.org/en/ ) for editing videos and can recommend it. There are builds for Windows, Linux and Mac and it just so happens that kdenlive can add a timer overlay to a video clip. (Its also free and open source). Amy's dad has produced a short video showing how to add a timer to your challenge videos, using the kdenlive Dynamic Text effect.  kdenlive can also be used to add lead-in, and titles to make the judges life easier. ..and not for the faint-hearted here is the resultant video, including lead in, titles and timer overlay. We will be using this timer technique on all our Pi Wars 2021 videos.