Blog of things

PiWars at home 2021: The Arena

2021-9-7

This is the third post in draft mode that I have about last PiWars (PiWars at Home 2021). A new PiWars has already been announced for 2022. Here I am still trying to catchup with my blogging from last year. Hopefully this one will see the light of the day. This one is about how I made a foldable arena for PiWars challenges. I showed a glimpse in my last post, here are the nitty gritties if you want to build one for yourself.

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PiWars at home 2021: Back to blogging and hello 'Smokey'

2020-11-20

Last year, we had qualified for PiWars 2020 and were happily chugging along when personal tragedy struck in October. After a month of suffering, my Dad passed away in November. This dealt a serious blow to my making and blogging morale. (I did give up my PiWars position last year late October). Dad was and will always be my biggest making cheerleader. My hobbies excite me, and I know these things excited him a lot, too. Anyway, the show must go on.

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Flashing Tasmota firmware on a Sonoff Basic to build your own WiFi switch

2020-1-3

Back in the days I had hoped to setup cheap SMPS, ESP8266 modules and a relay to build my custom 'wifi switches'. I had bought all the components separately, but unfortunately, time isn't something that can be purchased off the market. Thanks to other distractions in CAD, 3D Printing and robotics, this project kept getting shelved and the components never got used.

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Hits, misses and learnings when 3D Printing 'bot parts

2019-12-20

It has been 7 months since PiWars 2019 and believe it or not I have spent more than 175+ hours 3D printing parts for PiWars 2020 and then some for other machining and assembly/disassembly tasks (mostly before I knew if I would get a spot or not).

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Applying for and getting into PiWars 2020

2019-10-10

So... we applied for and made it to PiWars 2020. We have managed to expand on our previous sketch and send off the application one day before applications closed.

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