2023 IEEE MIT Micromouse Competition

MIT is once again hosting the 2023 IEEE MIT Micromouse Competition on Saturday, October 7, 2023 at 6:00pm to 8:30pm.

Competition Guideline: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kdcc4jkQoybmasNEZHMa5SbpPSjl39y6/view?usp=sharing

A Micromouse is a small robot vehicle that is able to navigate its way through an unknown maze. It is autonomous, battery-operated and self-contained, encompassing computer technology, robotics and artificial intelligence. The main challenge for the Micromouse designers is to import the Micromouse with an adaptive intelligence which enables exploration of different maze configurations, and to work out the optimum route with the shortest run time from start to destination and back. In addition, the Micromouse must reliably negotiate the maze at a very high speed without crashing into the maze walls. The objective of the competition is to build a Micromouse that can negotiate a specified maze in the shortest time.

All IEEE Student Members and Graduate Student Members are eligible to participate. High School Students (non-IEEE Member) are also welcome to participate, but they need to attend a 30 minutes introduction session about IEEE and how IEEE can help them when they are an Undergraduate Student at a college.

Whether your Micromouse is not quite functioning, or you have no Micromouse yet, you are welcome to participate.

Besides the usual awards towards the fastest maze solvers, there is an award for the best Micromouse design. This contest will focus on the overall design as demonstrated by an oral presentation. Although there is no specific format required for the presentation, the following guidelines should be used for preparing for the presentation.

The team should plan to address the following points in the presentation:
❖ Overall design goals and strategies
❖ High level structure of the design (mechanical, control)
❖ Design choices for sub functions (locomotion, sensing, etc)
❖ Overview of software
❖ Implementation and testing process and results
❖ Conclusions

We encourage groups to feature the most innovative part (coding, mechanical design, etc) during the design presentation. You can give the Oral Presentation while running your micromouse. Each presentation/micromouse run will be 5 minutes, with another up to 5 minutes for questions.

Please help to promote the MIT Micromouse competition, and encourage your students or friends to participate. If you, school robotics club or IEEE Student Branch have been working on designing and building a Micromouse project/program, this competition at MIT will be a great venue to celebrate your achievement and what you have learnt.

If you have not worked on Micromouse, and you are interested to develop one, you should start now. It is only about 2 weeks left to the competition. But, it is not too late to start the development. You are allow to get a robot kit, and do your best to build and program your Micromouse to solve the maze. You should still consider to participate this year competition even your Micromouse is not fully function, or is not moving. There is a judging award for Best Design Micromouse and Innovative Program, and the Micromouse does not have to perform well in the maze.

Please contact Soon Wan, IEEE Region 1 Student Activities Chair, gimsoon@ieee.org for any question.

Co-sponsored by: Soon Wan

Agenda:
MIT Stata Center – TSMC (near the buildlng main entrance)

3:00pm – 5:00pm Micromouse Prractice

6:00pm – 6:30pm Check-In

6:30pm – 8:30pm Micromouse Competition

Room: TSMC (near the buildlng main entrance), Bldg: Building 32, MIT – Ray and Maria Stata Center , 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States