Author Archives: Peter Harrison

Techfest 2014 Contest results

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Peter Harrison

Here are the results summaries for the maze-based contests at Techfest 2014, held on June 28th at Millennium Point by Birmingham City University. 

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UK Micromouse 2014

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Peter Harrison

The 2014 UK micromouse contest took place on Saturday 28th June at Birmingham City University as part of their Techfest event. Last year the results were dominated by a small number of Chinese mice. With eight Chinese entries this year, … Continue reading →

Posted in Micromouse, Techfest, UK contest | 3 Comments

Travelling a bumpy road with a micromouse

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Peter Harrison

My micromouse generates a lot of data. I log speeds, sensor readings, motor controller parameters. All sorts of things. Often that data just makes me worry. Most recently, I was noticing that there were some large variances at speed.

Posted in Hardware, Micromouse | 9 Comments

Birmingham City University Techfest 2014

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Peter Harrison

All is set for the fourth annual Techfest at Birmingham City University. On Saturday 28 June 2014, the University will be host to a celebration of technology, engineering and science. As with previous events there will be a variety of … Continue reading →

Posted in Line Follower, Micromouse, Techfest, UK contest | Tagged | Leave a comment

The gyro knows best – an experiment with a complementary filter

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Peter Harrison

Gyros drift. Everyone knows that and there are lots of ways to counter the drift. The autonomous flying vehicle folk will tell you that Kalman filters are the way to go – if you have time for all that maths. A … Continue reading →

Posted in Micromouse | 2 Comments

Claude Shannon made a micromouse first

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Peter Harrison

The micromouse contest has been around for some time now. You may be surprised at just how long there have been autonomous solvers of the problem. The modern contests began in the late 1970s and have run pretty much non-stop … Continue reading →

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Diagonal paths for a micromouse using a state machine

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Peter Harrison

To get the shortest possible run times, a micromouse must be able to make full use of diagonal paths. By running a diagonal, slow, tricky turns are avoided and the distance is much less. No competitive micromouse can ignore diagonals. … Continue reading →

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Smooth pathfinding with a state machine

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Peter Harrison

A competitive micromouse must run a path made up of smooth turns rather than stopping for in-place turns. For novice builders of micromouse, this can seem a difficult task. Here is a method for creating a smooth path using data … Continue reading →

Posted in Micromouse, Software | Tagged | 4 Comments

State Machines – an Introduction

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Peter Harrison

State machines are very useful tools in any computer system. They make it easy to visualise and solve all kinds of problems. Any small robot is likely to have a use for several state machines. This introduction looks at some basic … Continue reading →

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Minos 2014 report

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Peter Harrison

On April 26th 2014, Birmingham City University was host to the 14th annual Minos event. The change of venue brought a number of advantages but otherwise, the weekend followed the usual format of talks and lectures on the Saturday and … Continue reading →

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