#micromouse

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Squeeky (2003). Squeeky looks every bit like a mouse – a computer mouse that is. This wall-following micromouse competed in Techno Games 2003, and also UK Micromouse 2003 where the above video was recorded.

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Grígora S (2014) by Antonio Valente, Paulo Salgado, and José Boaventura-Cunha, Engineering Department, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro (UTAD), Vila Real, Portugal. Grígora S was runner-up in the final (B) of the 2016 Micromouse Portuguese Contest (MPC) with a time of 58.99 seconds.

"Some of the problems with commercially available robot kits or other kits for micromouse contest are that they are usually expensive and have very low performance essentially due to high dimensions and/or motor type. Therefore, a low-cost micromouse kit has been devised in the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro to help to raise high school students' interest to science and technology. The kit is based on Arduino Leonardo, has two wheels with differential drive." – Grígora S: A Low-Cost, High Performance Micromouse Kit.

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Dexter (2000) by Steve Benkovic, Steven Uyetanaka and Meng Cheng Hsieh, California State University at Northridge (CSUN). For scale, note that the wall in the first photo is 5 cm high. Four robots entered the UC Riverside Micromouse competition hosted at the fall IEEE conference in October 2000 and Dexter was the only one that found the centre of the maze.

"I (Steve Benkovic) along with my partners Steven Uyetanaka and Meng Cheng Hsieh were assigned the task of building a MicroMouse robot as our senior design group project here at CSUN (California State University at Northridge). After quite a few Cokes and many bags of tortilla chips, our project is finally done. ... Our mouse uses a single Motorola 68HC11 to process all of the information and has 32K of battery-backed RAM to store both the program and data. We chose this processor because we were already familiar with it which would speed up development time and because so much information and support is readily available from the Internet." – Steve Benkovic.

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Trilobite (1996) by Per Ljunggren (director of New Projects), Inese Ljunggren (designer), Electrolux AB, Stockholm, Sweden. Taking its name from the Cambrian arthropod, the Trilobite was first demonstrated in 1996. On its release in 2001 it became the first commercially available home robot vacuum cleaner.

"A film production crew from the BBC was visiting Sweden. They had arranged with ten local companies to record segments showcasing each firm's advanced technology. The stories would air on Tomorrow's World, the BBC's forward-looking documentary series. But one of the featured participants unexpectedly dropped out. Seeking a last-minute substitute, a BBC representative called Electrolux and asked, "Do you have anything interesting we can film?" The request found its way to Per, with whom it sparked a dilemma. During the several years the project had been underway, Per and others had made heroic efforts to ensure that no hint of Electrolux's robot vacuum project leaked out. They had succeeded. Was it now time to abandon secrecy and trumpet the news to the world? … Educating the market would take time but no robot could succeed without it. The BBC's offer seemed like a golden (and free!) opportunity to begin that process. As soon as Per showed the BBC crew just how interesting Electrolux's "interesting thing" was, they decided to reset. Trilobite merited something of much greater impact than a filmed-on-location, one-of-ten technology story. Production would be moved to the BBC's London studios where they could give Trilobite the VIP (VIR?) treatment. And so it was that on May 10, 1996, on an episode of Tomorrow's World, Electrolux broke the news. Presenter Philippa Forrester, dressed mostly in a towel (for reasons known only to the BBC producers), demonstrated the amazing abilities of the elegant new Electrolux Trilobite robot vacuum. For its TV debut, Trilobite was simply gorgeous. Its visage may have been inspired by an aquatic creature, extinct for a quarter billion years, but the robot's appearance was in every way sleek and contemporary. Round, standing a little over five inches tall, possessed of a dark green, mirror-like finish, Trilobite glided smartly about the floor. It delicately touched then turned away from a full glass of wine inadvisedly perched on the carpet, it scooped up debris, it maneuvered in near silence – a robotic tour de force!" – Dancing with Roomba, Joseph L. Jones.

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Isambard II (2009) by Martin Barratt, UK. Isambard II came fifth at RoboTIC 2009 with a time of 28.81 seconds. The first video excerpt above is taken from the RoboTIC 2011 UK micromouse competition.

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Kuro (2010) by Yuta Takemoto, Tokyo University of Science. Kuro was a Regional Tournament Seed Mouse that competed in the 2010 All-Japan Micromouse Competition.

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Kagetora (2009) by Yuta Takemoto, Tokyo University of Science, Japan. Kagetora came 10th in the final of the 30th All-Japan Micromouse Competition in 2009 with a time of 12.629 seconds, also winning a 'Special' prize. "The special award winner was Kagetora. He analysed maze data from the past two to three years and studied the propensities of the maze creators." – March Rabbit for Robot Watch, The 30th All-Japan Micromouse Competition.

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Voyager (1998) by Dave Woodfield, UK. Voyager competed in the 1998 UK Micromouse competition held in Manchester (see video), and the 1999 Micromouse National Finals where it came second with a time of 37.72 seconds.

"This is Voyager. … You can see that at least when it's exploring it turns just by turning one wheel backwards one wheel forwards and it runs on a couple of sort of Sliders that stop the front and back from dragging on the ground too much. You keep hearing this 'magic expression algorithm' which is just a nice technical way of saying this is how we work out how to get to the middle of the maze. … Now this mouse I suspect will not be capable of improving its time ... because its total elapsed time penalties will be added to its score." – Alan Dibley, UK Micromouse 1998.

"Voyager is a very smart looking (and running) micromouse mouse from Dave Woodfield. His first mouse since Enterprise in 1984, Voyager is a traditional wheelchair mouse driven by stepper motors. A Dallas DS5001 processor does the work. This is a 8051 derivative with on-board, battery-backed RAM. Easy to work with and offering a relatively low component count, these are popular processors for micromouse builders. Sensing is by means of an array of top-down, reflective IR sensors. There are a lot of these and they are managed by a Xilinx Programmable Logic Array chip. In the photographs, the entire top board that you can see is dedicated to the sensor system. If you want to be able to run diagonally, with a single row of sensors, you will want a fair number of them. As yet, Voyager does not perform diagonal runs. There is still work to be done on this mouse and, while quick, it will not necessarily beat Enterprise. ... The upper board hold the sensor processing circuitry. The lower one carries the processor and the motor drivers. A total of ten NiCd cells provides plenty of voltage for the stepper motor's chopper drive circuits. Essential for high performance from stepper motors. That big chip there is a PLA, not the processor. It looks after the sensors and the motor sequencing." – Pete Harrison.