entrants, the contest became quite
popular and is now often held in
conjunction with electronic business
conferences, especially where
IEEE attends.
What is a Micromouse?
A mouse must be self-contained
and totally autonomous, no larger
than 25 cm by 25 cm (about 10” x
10”) and there is no limit on the
height. It cannot, however, move over
or damage the maze walls. The maze
itself consists of a square pattern of
16 by 16 squares ( 18 by 18 cm each),
with 5 cm high walls of 1.2 cm
thickness. The entire maze is enclosed
by an outside wall and the mouse is
placed at an outside square and
must find its way all by itself to four
squares at the center of the maze.
This destination is so positioned
that wall-hugging mice will be unable
to locate it. Of course, the maze is set
up ahead of time and hidden from
view until just before the contest
begins. The mouse has 10 minutes to
complete the run from the start to the
center four squares where there is a
wooden goal post. Obviously, the
FIGURE 3. Micromouse maze at
Cal State Chico contest.
FIGURE 4. Micromouse maze variations.
80 SERVO 11.2008
fastest mouse wins. Figure 3 shows
the maze at a contest at Cal State
Chico. Note the detector protrusions
over the walls in both Figures 3 and 4.
One entry at a contest that I had
the pleasure of judging back in 1988
at Wescon featured a very unique
mouse. It could not have weighed
more than 100 grams and had a pair
of sensor arms made from PC board
material that extended over the walls
on both sides of the maze paths. I’m
guessing that the arms had a series of
IR photo transistors and IR LED pairs
to detect the presence or absence of
walls, and to keep the robot centered
in the path. This little sucker would zip
forward and stop at each 18 cm
square, examine the walls present,
and would then proceed or quickly
turn a precise 90 degrees as required,
and quickly step to the next square.
It rapidly examined almost every
possible square and found the center
fairly fast.
The amazing thing was when the
contestant placed the mouse back in
the square, the mouse quickly sped
to the center four squares by the
absolute best route, sometimes
making deliberate 45 degree turns
to save time. Needless to say, it won
first place.For rules, check out
www.ieee.uc.edu/main/files/sac20
07/mm_rules.pdf. There are many
other good sites that have both rules
and building techniques available.
FIRST — For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and
Technology
I could not write about robot
contests without mentioning the very
popular FIRST competition that began
back in 1992 with 28 teams competing in a New Hampshire high school
gym. This competition series is the
vision of one of my favorite robotic
innovators, Dean Kamen, best known
as the inventor of the Segway
Transporter. FIRST competitions are for
high school students across the US
and other countries. NASA and other
major US companies have been
long-time supporters of these events.
One example of a challenge was
one year teams competed against
each other by controlling their
individual robots to push and pass
large rubber ‘Trackballs’ around the
field of play. (Two of the five winning
high school teams were sponsored
by NASA centers.)
The mission and vision of the
FIRST Robotics Competitions, FRC, is
described this way, by Kamen:
“Our mission is to inspire young
people to be science and technology
leaders, by engaging them in exciting
mentor-based programs that build
science, engineering, and technology
skills, that inspire innovation, and
that foster well-rounded life
capabilities including self-confidence,
communication, and leadership.”
BEST — Boosting
Engineering, Science, and
Technology
BEST is also a non-profit,
volunteer-based organization whose
mission is to inspire middle and
high school age students to pursue
careers in engineering, science, and
technology through participation in a
sports-like, science and engineering-based robotics competition.
Their vision is to excite the
nation's students about engineering,
science, and technology to unlock
their imagination and discover their
potential.
Final Results
I’ve only touched on a few of
the more visible robotics contests.
The many variations of BattleBots that
was so popular a half dozen years
ago on the Comedy Channel are still
held across the world. Robot Sumo
and other physical robot vs. robot
contests are a mainstay of most robot
organization’s events. If any of these
competitions sound the least bit
interesting to you, I encourage you to
go to any of the hundreds of websites
for information and help your own
group of robotics enthusiasts develop
some super fun events in your home
town. SV
Tom Carroll can be reached via email
at TWCarroll@aol.com.
