Links

A search of the web for micromouse information is likely to be frustrating in spite of the relatively large number of hits you will get.

When you search, remember to use micromouse and “micro mouse” to collect the biggest set of hits. I expect many of the most informative sites to be in Japanese or Korean and thus, as far as I am concerned, almost unreadable. There is often something to be found in the form of pictures or technical specs in English. If you can, try viewing some of these pages in their ‘proper’ encoding. Occasionally, extra sense can be made of them and the layout is often better. Also, you may just be able to find someone that can read it. Recently, I have had some success with the automatic translators such as babelfish.altavista.com. Sometimes, you are better off not knowing.

Here are some links to a variety of sites around the world.The list is likely to be very out of date now.

• The Technology Innovation Centre at Millenium Point in Birmingham is currently hosting the UK competition – held in June each year.
• Royal Holloway College in London are the hosts to the annual MINOS micromouse conference held each Spring.
• Royal Holloway Micromouse Design Group also have a page which gives details of the mouse building activities at Royal Holloway.
• Ng Beng Kiat has a useful site with some general information and details of a couple of his mice – particularly min3. Although from Singapore, I understand he won the 2004 Japan competition.
• The Robot Dreams site, by Lem Fugitt, is fascinating. There are some good micromouse resources and links there, and the other stuff about Japan and any number of other subjects is particularly interesting.
• Itani-san’s MM3 website describes a six wheel mouse. There are lots of pictures and technical information.
• The 4th Laboratory is a site by (I think) Nakajima. This contains a history of his own mice and a lot of information about his rendition of the six-wheel design called MM3R.
• The home page of Eiichiro Morinaga is another mine of information. Among other things, you will find pretty complete instructions for building quite a sophisticated micromouse. Several versions of this design have been made and run in competition. Look for the link to BasicMouse at the top of the page.
• Ito’s Homepage is where you will find details of what is arguably the most elegant of micromice – Silf NS3. A skeletal design that will definitely have you wondering where all the bits went. All the key drawings are there if you fancy a go yourself. His other creations are very impressive as well.
• Kouhei’s Homepage shows the development of what I think is the first mouse to search on a diagonal pattern. The link points to the current entries in his diary. All of the older entries are available at this page. Here you will find 4 years or so of development work from experimental beginnings to a very competitive mouse. This is a very long page in the form of a diary. Stick with it, there are a number of good links to pictures and videos tucked away here.
• Steve Benkovic from the California State University at Northridge maintains an excellent site covering the design of a micromouse called Dexter running on steppers, controlled by a 68HC11 processor.
• Swallow Systems make small educational robots in the UK. Duncan has a good DC motor drive train for sale. Follow the Dash Free link for some information about the UK micromouse competition.
• The West Wales Micromouse Project and Competition started five years ago, mainly to introduce control technology to year 5/6 Primary School pupils, and advance the knowledge of Secondary School pupils. It is also (for the second year) a laboratory project, for Electronic Students at University of Wales Swansea.
• robot.org.uk: Martin Smith’s guide for robot builders. Information for Techno Games, Robot Wars, Micromouse, RoboFesta and student projects. Robotics books, magazines, CD-ROMs, kits, component suppliers, information sources and events..
• Active Robots Ltd are a UK based company supplying micromouse robots and accessories. They have a ready to go micromouse in the form of the AIRAT from Microrobots and a number of handy looking chassis yuo could probably adapt as wall followers or maze solvers. The AVR processor boards look particularly useful.
• Kanesalingam’s Homepage From the University of East London. this page has information about the UK competition and rules as well as some details of a mouse built for one of the IEEE competitions from a few years back.
• RoboFesta RoboFesta-UK is the UK member of RoboFesta-Europe, part of an international movement to promote interest in science and technology through many different kinds of robotics activities. These include many exciting robot competitions for children and adults, expositions, technical meetings, and widespread media cover. In 2004, RoboFesta will come to the United Kingdom and Europe.
• AN443: IEEE Micro Mouse using the 87C751 microcontroller (PDF file) This datasheet from Philips Semiconductors describes a wall following mouse constructed using the Philips 87C751 processor. The same design could be followed as a starting point for a full maze solver using, say, a Dallas DS5000 processor.
• My Micro Mouse World is a frequently mirrored site. Here you will find details of the ANK-50 and GENESIS-2 mice built around 1994. Of particular interest are the source code and schematics of both mice. ANK-50 uses the 80196kc processor while GENESIS-2 uses a V25. Both share very similar motor driver and sensory circuits.
• University of Westminster use micromouse as a project for B.Eng Electronics Students. This page shows a mouse built around Lego and has links to some internal information pages.
• Loughborough University also teach a course that makes use of micromouse as a practical project.
• SAIRO is the on-line name of Jae hun Choi. He has pictures of some mice – text is in (I presume) Korean? Check the links page as well.
• The New Technology Foundation is Japan’s main micromouse site. There are lots of links and competition results. There also seems to be some trouble accessing this site lately.
• Directory of /pub/comp/misc/micromouse – these files are stored at the Macquarie University in Sydney Australia. Here you can find some code in C for a mouse called Mazin’ May and a bunch of other stuff including sample mazes from old competitions. I think some of this originates from New Zealand or Australia.
• Making Mephistophelean mazes does just what it says.
• CUQUEE III is a mouse built by Gordon Wyeth of theUniversity of Queensland. Links to details appear broken but there is a rather splendid picture of the beast and some links relating to other robot stuff.
• MicroMouse Contest held at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden has some sample code. This is actually the code for MITEE MOUSE III built by David Otten et. al. and described in Circuit Cellar INK June – Sep 1990
• UCDAVIS offers micromouse as a course and has an FTP site with loads of stuff in it.
• UCSB run an IEE micromouse competition. Here you will find details of a mouse called the Green Machine
• GREEN EGGS REPORT is a list of URLs spotted within comp.robotics. Mostly not about micromouse but fairly interesting anyway.
• Computer Vision is the way to go if you are brave. Here is a site dealing with the task.
• Microbotix carry a lot of information and links to other sites.