The annual winter micromouse contest was held at Millenium Point in Birmingham by the University of Central England on Saturday November 19th 2011. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend this year but I gather everyone had a great day. I have managed to gather some results and the finals maze though…

The overall results table looks like this:

Competitor Place Competition Category
Stephen Pithouse with SLINKY First Line Follower Finals Junior
Jonathan & Ewan Luke with SCORPION 3D Second Line Follower Finals Junior
Bernard Grabowski with WHS First Line Follower Finals Senior
Duncan Louttit with DASHED Second Line Follower Finals Senior
David Hannaford with MINI Joint Third Line Follower Finals Senior
David Hannaford with NOSEY Joint Third Line Follower Finals Senior
Peter Waller with CHEDDARBYTE First Non Contact Wall Senior
Bernard Grabowski with VITO Second Non Contact Wall Senior
David Hannaford with WHS Third Non Contact Wall Senior
Derek Hall with MOUSE X First Maze Solver Senior
Jim Chidley with PICONE TURBO Second Maze Solver Senior
Tim Foden with FAT CAT Third Maze Solver Senior
Ken Hewitt with DEE First Time Trials Senior
Martin Barratt with D-WHIZ Second Time Trials Senior
Tim Foden with FAT CAT Third Time Trials Senior

While the record of score times looks like this:

MazeSolver:

EntrantMouseName handler Score
Mouse X Derek Hall 17.61
FAB 1 Derek Hall 24.24
Mouse X2 Derek Hall 25.29
PicOne Turbo Jim  Chidley 32.5
Fat Cat Tim Foden 32.77
Isambard II Martin Barratt 42.55
PICone Jim Chidley 46.62
Microbot Jim Chidley 88.47
Kaasjager Coen Roos 95.19

Wall Follower:

Cheddarbyte Peter Waller 23.59
Vito Bernard Grabowski 25.42
E-Rat-Tic David  Hannaford 37.14
Lefty Ken Hewitt 46.56
McGuin Duncan Louttit 56.66
There Yet? Stephen Pithouse 68.21
Kitty Martin Barratt 73.92

Time Trials:

Dee Ken Hewitt 6.07
D-Whiz Martin Barratt 6.51
Fat Cat Tim Foden 6.98
E-Rat-Tic David  Hannaford 15.66
Cheddarbyte Peter Waller 16.88
PicOne Turbo Jim  Chidley 23.33

In the Time trials – a fast run all the way around the outside of a 16×16 maze – the best times went to the purely mechanical Dee and D-Whiz. However, it is encouraging to note that Tim Foden’s Fat Cat put in a very respectable time. It should not be long before a ‘proper’ mouse is able to definitively beat the mechanical monsters.

In the maze solver contest, Derek Hall appeared to have mostly himself to beat although the time returned by Jim Chidley’s PICOne Turbo was looking good. Remember that the UK contest rules have a search time penalty so the score is a combination of the actual run time and the total amount of time taken, including exploration.

A look at the actual fastest runs is interesting:

Mouse Handler Best Time
Mouse X Derek Hall 14.63
Mouse X2 Derek Hall 14.98
FAB 1 Derek Hall 15.49
Fat Cat Tim Foden 28.31
PicOne Turbo Jim  Chidley 29
Isambard II Martin Barratt 35.22
Kaasjager Coen Roos 74.76
Microbot Jim Chidley 81.9

Derek’s MouseX and MouseX2 are very closely matched. The six-wheeled FAB1 is nearly as quick but, I believe, has not yet got the integrated turns and diagonals fully set up. FatCat is actually a bit faster than PicOne Turbo but clearly must have taken somewhat longer to actually search the maze. There may also have been touch penalties involved. I am not sure.

The maze, designed by Ken Hewitt, in which these results were obtained looked like this:

The maze for the RoboTIC 2011 micromouse contest finalsThe two paths indicated were about the same length at 86 and 88 cells and should have given a straight-seeking mouse a good opportunity to show off. Depending upon how the pathfinder handles the goal though, a diagonal entry into the goal area can be a bit tricky and has upset mice in the past.

Derek Hall has uploaded video showing the runs of the maze solvers:

A number of photos have been contributed by Ken Hewitt and I would like to thank him, Tony Wilcox – the event organiser and David Hannaford for the data and details needed to write this post.

Since I was not there, feel free to correct any errors.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Ken Hewitt

    Pete.

    The solver finals maze is actually the maze used at APEC 2002, the other mazes which were used for the heats and follower finals were modified version of this maze.

    At APEC 2002 the winner was Ng Being Kiat with Min 3 with a score of 12.36 and a fastest run of 11.21 secs. I am not sure if the score is calculated the same way as in the UK so this may differ a bit.

    One difference at the November event compared to the June competition was that the different classes were run individually so everyone was able to check out what was happening in the different events.

    Thanks again to Tony and his band of helpers for putting on a great day.

  2. Derek Hall

    RoboTIC 2011 Video

  3. Peter Harrison

    I linked your latest video into the main body.

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