Getting data back from the micromouse is a bit of a pain. Constantly having to disconnect and reconnect the serial cable every time you need to get some sensor readings or a data log gets old very quickly. Especially if you have done it wrong like me and about one in five reconnects resets the processor. So, as a quick hack, I made a carrier board that will connect to the existing serial and other pins on board. The carrier has a speaker, a push button, two LEDs and a Sparkfun bluetooth serial link. While larger that I would like, the Sparkfun module runs from 5V and is already set up ready to go. On a future mouse, I will make provision for the RN-42 module which is much smaller and runs from 3.3V. By default, the link speed is 115k baud and so far it just works. Turn on the mouse, tell the terminal software to connect to the bluetooth serial port and you’re good to go. Visit the Sparkfun web site for more information about the module. The carrier is way too high and way too heavy to use at speed but it should be a great help when getting the mouse set up. I expect to put a simple command line interpreter on the mouse so that it can be controlled remotely.
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