Nebula Robotics — Pi Wars Robot

Problem

Pi Wars is an international robotics competition where Raspberry Pi robots compete in a range of challenges. With a single body, our robot had to follow the road, understand its surroundings, and handle obstacles and a maze without any human input.

Solution

The camera was the robot's "eye": using OpenCV for image processing, the robot understood its surroundings on its own.

• Line following: We detected the line in the camera image and kept the robot on it.
• Autonomous driving in a miniature city: The course included a miniature city road. The robot recognized the road from the image and steered its motors to keep itself aligned and stay on route.
• Obstacle detection: Using distance measurement, it detected obstacles instantly and stopped.
• Maze: Thanks to the pathfinding algorithm we developed, the robot found its way out of the maze quickly and effortlessly, without any guidance.

As team captain and software developer, I coordinated the team and built the robot's software.

Result

At the second Pi Wars held in Türkiye we won 1st place and the Construction & Design award. This project is the foundation of the robotics training I give students today.