These rules are subject to change
You will be notified of any major change if you are accepted into the competition.

Please read these rules thoroughly.

Team Rules

  1. Robots and teams will be allocated to qualify for two of the following categories:
    1. Middle or high school level and
    2. Beginner teams.
    3. Intermediate teams.
    4. Advanced/Professional teams.
  2. Teams will be asked at the time of application into which category they should be entered. The final decision on categorisation rests with Pi Wars in consultation with the robot team.

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  3. Each team must build and program a single robot that handles all the challenges. This robot can have attachments, and parts can be exchanged, but must remain fundamentally the ‘same’ robot.
  4. Robots will compete and be ranked against other robots in the same category.
  5. Any competitor under 18 years of age must be accompanied by a responsible adult. We are very strict about this!
  6. All teams must be able to send at least one participant to the actual event.
  7. Teams may be comprised of 2 to 6 participants. We will ask how many people will be in your team om the application. Should team members change or if the size of your team changes after team acceptance, please be sure to let us know..
  8. All robots must remain powered down or ‘on blocks’ in the workrooms. This is to ensure that any remote control conflicts or remote control/autonomous mistakes do not result in your robot zooming off the table and being damaged.

Robot Rules

Raspberry Pi at the Core

  1. All robots must have an operational Raspberry Pi at their core which carries out the majority of the computing effort.
  2. You are allowed to enter one, single robot to the competition. You are not permitted to “swap out” the entire robot at any time, although you are permitted to swap out parts of your robot to compete in different challenges, such as motors and wheels, for example.
  3. Other boards, such as an Arduino, micro:bit or other microcontroller may be used on the robot but the Raspberry Pi must be in overall control.
  4. Additional pieces of equipment e.g. a games controller, a laptop, mobile phone or tablet may be used to control the robot, but must not be physically attached when competing on the courses.

Power

  1. All robots must be powered by batteries.
  2. Mains power may be used for charging battery packs.
  3. If LiPo batteries are used, any charging must be done inside a fire-proof bag or box, available from many places that stock the batteries, such as HobbyKing. This is to ensure we don’t have any accidents.

Robot Types

  1. No airborne robots are permitted, e.g. drones.
  2. Walking and self-balancing robots are permitted.
  3. Hovercraft-style robots are allowed provided that the main fan is enclosed safely.

Smoke amd Flames!

  1. Regardless of the theme for the current competition, the robot must not intentionally emit smoke or flames. This will set the fire/smoke alarms off and be generally embarrassing.
  2. No soldering is permitted within the building. However, if you wish to bring a battery-powered soldering iron with you and solder outside, this is fine as long as no smoke enters the building.