With a new high speed "raptor" class, challenge rounds and even stationary obstacles, read about all the changes to the winter 2017 season.

Entries are open for the Winter Series of Formula Pi until the 31st of October, so make sure you enter before the deadline closes! Click here for entry.

The dates for the Formula Pi Winter 2017 season are now up!
A longer than usual season, it will run from the 8th of November through to the 21st of March.

What a season we have in store! For our third season, we will see the MonsterBorg class as the standard class for competition. The YetiBorg class is being superseded. There will be challenge races with two robots competing head to head, stationary vehicles to hone those avoidance code skills, and a whole new, faster, more complicated class called the Raptor class will debut during the broadcast of the MonsterBorg class Final (Wednesday 21st March).

New Raptor Class

At the moment the Raptor class will be an invite only class of just 5 competitors so that we can get everything planned and sorted. It will eventually be accessible to anyone who has successfully competed in a season of Formula Pi. While the interperetation of successful will be up to the organisers, it normally means that competitors will have submitted code and a YetiLid, and generally done all the typical steps of competing. The raptor class will use the a PiBorg Raptor control board, a commercially available RC chassis with modifications to servos and drive to allow speed feedback. Each Raptor will have a Pozyx tag for localised GPS position information, and will have acceleration and gyroscopic data from the Interial Measurement Unit (IMU) which will be available for competitors to do with as they see fit. This will also allow live position information for competitors vehicles, giving us the ability to add to the video stream displays of fastest lap times, and live position information.

Due to the complex nature of the hardware, it's likely that this series will start much later in the season, and may become a class between the summer and winter seasons. If you are interested in competing in this, please send us a message via the contact form.

Updates to the rules for the Winter 2017 series

We are changing the format of the racing. Please see the Formula Pi rules for the latest rules changes. Below is a helpful summary of the rules changes.

1. The Grand Pi class (YetiBorg) is being discontinued. The Monster class will now become the main class of Formula Pi
2. The testing rounds will go back to two testing rounds before the season start. There will no longer be testing rounds between the races
3. A new round called the Challenge round will go between each race. This is a head to head race of two competitors, with stationary robots placed around the track. These races last 5 laps or 3 minutes
4. Points will be awarded for the Challenge races (10 points for win, 5 points for 2nd, 0 points if less than 5 laps in 3 minutes)
5. Points awarded for each race will be simplified: 10 points for first place, 8 points for second place, 6 points for third place, 4 points for fourth place, 2 points for fifth place. These will only be awarded if more than 5 laps are completed within the 10 minutes
6. Races will now normally be held on Wednesday (Thursday and Friday will be overflow days if we cannot get all timetabled events in the one day)
7. Submission deadlines are now 9am GMT Monday giving competitors the weekend to fine-tune their code
8. There will be three challenge events and three races, meaning six rounds contribute to resulting points rather than four

We hope to see you all again for this season.