Introduction to Brian²
Hello, World! From the Brian² Pi Wars team

Hello, World!

We are Brian² , competitors in the Pi Wars 2024 robotics competition. Welcome to our blog!

Brian² Logo

Brian² is a team of two Brians (because two Brians are better than one): Brian Corteil and Brian Starkey.

We’re both Pi Wars veterans, with Brian C having competed in 5 previous Pi Wars competitions, and Brian S having competed in 3; and have decided to join forces this year with our entry.

Our basic plan is to enter a Tiny 4WD-derived design, from Brian C’s Coretec Robotics - because, despite being its creator, Brian C has never entered a Tiny in Pi Wars! (Though plenty of others have).

There’ll be a future post on the design and history of the Tiny 4WD chassis. For now, the basic essentials are:

  • Overall chassis size, shape and design from a Tiny 4WD
  • Pimoroni N20 Micro Metal Gearmotors, with encoders, x4
  • Pimoroni Mecanum Wheels, x4
  • Pimoroni Motor 2040 quad motor driver
    • No, we aren’t sponsored…
  • Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
  • Raspberry Pi Camera (precise version tbd)
  • Flashy lights
  • ★Sensors★ (exact complement tbd)
  • 2S Lithium battery (exact size/shape tbd)

Right now we have each built a broadly-the-same-but-slightly-different Tiny 4WD using the parts above, and we’ll be converging on a single final robot as we progress.

There’s much more to come… we’re aiming for mostly autonomous, hopefully some robot arm action, and zombie-slaying weaponry (of course).


Author: Brian S

Last modified on 2023-11-01