An Introduction MICROMOUSE
Dec 15, 2015
WHAT IS MICROMOUSE?• An autonomous maze-solving robot
• Many interesting and innovative designs exist to sense and navigate the maze
• Competitions began in the 1970s and have continued throughout today
• Worldwide competitions held yearly in Asia and North America
YOUR LEADSName: Andrew Chan
Major: EE, Class of 2016
Hobbies: Star Wars, GOT, physics, electronics
What I did last summer: Interned at Sothern California Edison, learned how to drive the 405 and 5, ate a lot of good Asian food in SoCal
Name: Ivan Petkov
Major: CSE, Class of 2015
Hobbies: Programming, racquetball, gaming, and electronics!
What I did last summer: worked at Symantec, did a lot of (outside) programming, and played Dishonored a lot
MICROMOUSE CORE CONCEPTS
• Hardware design:
• Microcontrollers
• Sensors and motors
• Layout (PCB or perfboard)
• Feedback control:
• Keep the mouse centered
• Don’t hit the walls!
• Path-finding:
• Floodfill, Dijikstra’s, A*, JPS, and many others!
• Memory efficiency: microcontrollers typically have a couple kilobytes of RAM!
BASIC BUDGET ($250)• Initial $100 deposit
• IEEE will provide $250 worth of parts to build your Micromouse
• Goal: traverse 16 or more cells without touching any walls
• Mouse will have to handle left and right turns, as well as dead-ends
• Best option for beginners, even if you will try to solve the maze!
ADVANCED BUDGET ($500)• Initial $200 deposit
• IEEE will provide up to $500 worth of parts to build your Micromouse
• Goal: Reach the center of a 16x16 maze!
• Great for experienced Micromouse participants, or highly competitive mice!
• Can afford higher precision encoders, motors, and sensors
TO (PC)B, OR NOT TO (PC)B?
• Extremely reliable
• Improved precision
• Compact and lightweight
• Requires EAGLE CAD knowledge
• UCLA IEEE holds Eagle workshops a few times throughout the year!
• Highly recommended for competitive mice or those with more EE experience
• We now have a PCB milling machine in the lab!
• We can quickly create PCB prototypes for you**Terms and Details Apply
COMPETITIONS
• Plenty of opportunities to compete!
• All-America MicroMouse at UCLA
• California MicroMouse (CAMM) at UCSD
• Region 6 Southern Area MicroMouse
RESOURCES
• Weekly lectures
• Topics ranging from basic to advanced concepts useful for beginners and veterans alike
RESOURCES
• All lecture presentations will be posted there
• Additional information on parts, hardware, and software will be posted there as well
• Micromouse wiki: http://micromouse.ieeebruins.org
RESOURCES
• Workshop projects
• This year we will be introducing several mini-projects to the program
• Each focuses on a core Micromouse topic
• e.g. Wall detection, maze traversal/turning, etc.
• It will allow you to practice the concepts you have learned sooner, without having to wait to receive all your parts
• More info will be given later!
EXPECTATIONS
• Do your best to attend lecture
• Work on the workshop projects
• Document your mouse!
• Schematics, parts, and software!
EXPECTATIONS
• Ask us questions!!
• We are here to point you in the right direction!
• If lectures are unclear or you want a different explanation, ask us right away!
• Contact us at [email protected]
EXPECTATIONS
• And most importantly: have fun!!!
• Micromouse is awesome and a SUPER rewarding project once you get it running, even if you don’t find the center of the maze!