A Short History

 When the MicroMouse competition was first run, in 1979 in New York, The goal was to get to the opposite corner of the maze from the one where you started. A Wall following mouse easily won this competition, and so in subsequent years the rules were changed to move the target to the center cells. This meant that an 'Island' could be created in the center of the maze, which would stop Wall followers from solving the maze. 

In 1980 the first MicroMouse competition in Europe was held, There were 18 competitors in total, none of whom a managed to solve the maze.

Various competitions then started springing up around the world, including Japanese, Singaporean, American and European competitions.
 
The UK competitions are held each year at the MINOS MicroMouse conference at Royal Holloway at Easter, the UK MicroMouse championships (UKMM) at TIC in Birmingham during June, and RoboTIC, Also at TIC in late November.