The Micromouse Contest

The micromouse competition is to build a small mobile robot that can solve a standardised maze. The competition has been running for over 25 years and is popular in the UK, USA, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia and elsewhere. This "maze solving" contest was designed to challenge graduate electronic engineers.

Various simpler versions of the contest have been created for schools and the under 18's. A popular variant of the contest in the UK is to use the same sized maze but with a simplified layout. In this "wall follower" contest "Mice" follow the left hand wall until they reach the centre of the simplified maze. Mice are timed from a corner to the centre. The fastest mouse wins the contest.

The contest was run for several years in the UK by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE). When they discontinued support Dr. Adrian Johnstone of Royal Holloway College and I kept it going.

The micromouse contest started in the USA in 1977. The first contest in the UK took place in 1980. Since that time the contest has been run annually in the UK attracting around 10 mice each year. We introduced a simpler schools class in 1993 which attracted around 20 schools mice each year.

A typical annual UK micromouse competition approximately 25 mice attend of which 10 are maze solvers and 15 are wall followers. The schools micromouse competition is run predominantly at Manchester Metropolitan University. The minimal mouse schools competition is run in Essex and Wales by Steve Wooley from Bancroft’s school. Roughly 10 mice entered from each region with a mixture of line followers and wall followers.

My most successful student in the maze solver competition was Chelliah Kanesalingam, nicknamed Kanesh, a BEng, MSc and PhD student of mine who built Maisie. The Meccano prototype is below. The stepper motors were taken from old BBC computer disc drives. Technical information on the design and construction of Maisie is available here:

Maisie_design

Maisie: a maze solving micromouse

Maisie’s Trophies. These are the trophies Maisie won at Robotix ’96, Robotix ’97, the IEE Micromouse World Championships in 1995, ’96 and ’97 and the Royal Holloway sponsored Championships in 2000.

The cheeses are solid brass. For the 25th UK micromouse contest in 2004 the cheeses were silver plated. Cheeses are only awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the annual UK competition. This exclusivity makes them highly valued.

The maze shown in the photos is the one I took to Robotix in 1996 and 1997, Tomorrows World Live at the NEC, the Model Engineering Exhibition and Techno Games. The cost of building a replacement maze at commercial rates would be around £2000. Only a small number of universities have invested in a maze. I only know of Salford, Westminster, Loughborough and the Technology Innovation Centre University of Central England in Birmingham.

www.tic.ac.uk/micromouse

Click here for the Micromouse rules