It may be the height of summer, but things are already well under way for a firm fixture on the Raspberry Pi calendar: Pi Wars 2020. The sixth Pi Wars event is due to take place in May 2020. Entries open at the start of August and must be in by 24 September.

Course favourites Pi Noon – in which robots have to burst a balloon on their opponent’s robot using a spiked probe – and the Obstacle Course will return, the latter with new obstacles.

This Pi Wars is being opened up to wannabe track engineers. Most Pi Wars challenges are built by event co-organiser Tim Richardson, and he’s keen to open up the course design to the rest of the community. Brilliantly, this means the rest of us get to pitch ideas for courses, and even offer our expertise in building them.

See also:

Pi Wars: How to win the Olympics of Raspberry Pi robotics

Pi Wars winners!

Pi Wars 2020: On course for success

Pi Wars co-organiser Mike Horne says, “What makes 2020 special is that, for the first time, we are asking the community to contribute to the event by proposing and building courses. We’ve asked as many people as possible to propose courses for the competition, and then to build them.”

This will also free up the indefatigable Tim to work on fiendishly clever new advances and surprises for Pi Wars 2020.

Previous events filled up very quickly, so get your skates on if you’d like to apply. There are two categories: School and Kids’ Clubs teams on the Saturday, and then All Other Teams on the Sunday. To keep things competitive, teams entering are also split by levels of prior Pi Wars experience. “We’ve found the format works well, allowing us to have a good spread of teams,” says Mike.

Volunteers can apply via the Pi Wars website.