talking about micro mouse racing (used veritasium video on micro mouse)

1. Micro mouse

2. Introduction A micro mouse, also is a small autonomous robot
designed to navigate and solve mazes. These robots
are typically used in robotics competitions and serve as
a platform for testing and developing various robotics
and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques.

3. Micro mouse –
example

4. In real life:

5. History

6. IN 1952 MATHEMATICIAN
CLAUDE SHANNON
CREATED AN
ELECTRONIC MOUSE
NAMED “THESIS” THAT
CAN SOLVE ANY MAZE.
THE TRICK WAS THAT
THE BOARD HAD
TELEPHONE RELAY
SWITCHES BUILD INTO IT
AND THE MOUSE (THAT
WAS JUST A BIG
MAGNET) WOULD MOVE
BASED ON THE BOARD'S
MAGNETS.
AT FIRST THE
MOUSE/BOARD WOULD
LEARN THE WHOLE
MAZE, AND AFTER THAT
YOU WOULD PUT THE
MOUSE DOWN
WHEREVER YOU
WANTED, AND IT WOULD
SOLVE THE MAZE.

7. This was regarded
as one of the first
examples of
machine learning

8. 25 years later the Institute
of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers
(IEEE)
got wind of a contest for
electronic mice, they
thought that it was a
contest based on Claude
Shannon mouse “thesis”,
but it wasn’t.
However, this gave them
an idea.
In 1977 IEEE announced
that they would create a
micro mouse competition.

9. In the beginning the competition got
around 6000 applicants,
But just 2 years later (1979) the
number of successful entries had
dropped down to 15.
However, by that point the contest had
gained a huge audience across the
world.

10. Rules

11. Fully autonomies No GPS No internet No remote control No touching
No climbing No flying No rockets No combustion Max width/length
of 25cm

12. The size of the
board is normally
3x3m
and the width of
the lane is 18cm
3m
3m 18cm

13. 3m
3m 9cm
In 2009 they
introduced the half
size maze, where the
width of the corridor is
only 9cm
The final layout of the
maze is only reviled at
the start of each
competition,
whereafter you can’t
change the code in
the mouse.

14. The 3 biggest competitions (Japan, Taiwan
and the USA) all limit the amount of time
each mouse can be on the maze to 7-10
min
The mice are only allowed 5 runs from the
start to the goal

15. So, what the
strategy to
solving the
maze?

16. Option 1
hand on wall
Because it was so
simple, the goal was
moved away from walls
so that this method
wouldn’t work

17. Option 2
DFS
It’s to long, and will take
forever, plus it might not
find the shortest rout.

18. Option 3
BFS
It’s to long, and will take
forever

19. Option 4
Flood fill
It takes advantage of the
way back to find other
options

20. Option 4
Flood fill
It takes advantage of the
way back to find other
options

21. What do we do from here?
Once the fastest algorithm was found there was no
point in the competition.

22. Now comes the stage where you
find how to fine tune your mouse.
Throughout the years there were many advancements

23. Turns
• In the 2017 competition the
winning mouse figured out that you
can get a faster runtime not by
taking the shortest route but by
taking the route with the least turns
• This tactic made him win by a
margin of 132ms

24. Corners
• In the beginning all mice would
turn corner in a 90° fashion, until
the mouse
“Mitee 3” came along and changed
that.

25. Corners
• However, this meant that the
body of the mouse couldn’t be
wider than 11 cm, otherwise
the body wouldn’t be able to
fit.
And the sensors need to
change.

26. Smooth
turns
• Instead of doing ridged turns,
contestants figured out a way for
the mouse to make those turns in
a smooth motion, allowing the
mouse to keep up its speed.

27. Slipping
• Throughout the years the mice
would get faster and faster and by
the early 2000’s the issue wasn’t
the speed of the mouse but rather
the control over the mouse at
those speeds.
• One of the issues was the dust
that would cause the mouse to
lose grip.
The way they fixed that was by
using tape.

28. Slipping
• “Mocomo8” and another idea on
how to keep the grip on the maze.
He put a fan at the bottom of the
mouse and basically vacuuming
itself to the ground.
• Thanks to this new creation mice
these days can turn corners with a
force of around 6G. (that’s the
same as F-1 cars!!)
• This allowed complete control
over the mouse even at crazy
speeds. (7m per second)

30. In summary
• In summary micro mouse is a
very cool race that developed
dramatically over the years.
• We spoke a bit about its history
• The rules
• The search algorithm
• And the issues/improvements.

31. Any questions?