The Taiwan 2012 micromouse and intelligent robot contest is only five days away. I have spent a huge amount of time in the last few weeks trying to turn my latest code re-write into a working mouse. This could all have been a lot less stressful if I had done…
Not many of us have the luxury of developing a micromouse in a laboratory environment. Although, thinking about it, some of the very best mice do indeed enjoy that benefit. Like most, I work in a spare room at home. Technically, it is a spare bedroom and so it is…
For a few weeks now, I have been struggling with strange behaviour on the micromouse. This version is Decimus 2C. It is the build that ran (poorly) at the UK contest in the summer of 2012. It did not do well so I have been trying to get it all tidy for the Taiwan contest next week. (more…)
A while ago, I posted a way to calculate the position of the centre of mass of your micromouse. One or two people wondered why I might care so much. A couple of calculations with Decimus 4 illustrated why it might be important. (more…)
Good, free running wheels are an essential part of the drive train on your micromouse. Not only is there little point in wasting power driving inefficient wheels but it is important to make both sides as similar as possible to avoid any natural tendency to wander off to one side.…
What a busy day! The 2012 Techfest event held by Birmingham City University at Millennium Point, on June 16th was packed with robotic activity. There was something for everyone with events including mini-sumo, ant-weight robot wars, line following, drag races, wall followers and micromouse. In a slight change from previous…
Pretty well everything is ready now to put together Decimus 4 - my latest micromouse. The last part to be done was the wheels. While I had the materials and the tools to make these, I certainly didn't have the time so I thought I might as well try having…
On Saturday June 16th, Birmingham City University holds the second annual Techfest event at Millenium Point in Birmingham. This will also be the 9th successive year that BCU hosts the UK micromouse competition. Once more there will be an International lineup of competitors including St. Josephs Institution from Singapore coming for…
Soon after listening to the presentation by Martyn Pittuck at Minos12 about Shapeways printed parts, I designed and ordered the motor mounts for my micromouse, Decimus 4. The design part was a bit harder than I expected because of a poor decision taken previously about the PCB outline but ordering…
Arguably the most important turn that a micromouse can perform is the search turn. That is, a simple 90 degree turn performed while the mouse is still searching the maze. While searching, the mouse generally has no idea what is waiting around the next corner. A decision has to be…