History of Micromouse
The Micromouse competition was held for 34 years as part of the APEC conference. The goal of the Micromouse competition has been to design and build a robot that can navigate from the corner of a 10-foot square maze to the center in the shortest time. The Micromouse competition was originally conceived as a contest for the search and optimizing algorithms. Very quickly it became apparent that the real challenge for a Micromouse is the propulsion and motor drive - more of a power electronics challenge than an artificial intelligence challenge.
For most entrants the competition is divided into two phases, the search phase and the run phase. During the search phase the mouse determines at least one path from the start to the center and may seek additional paths in hopes of finding a faster one. During the run phase the mouse goes as quickly as possible from the start square in the corner of the maze to the center of the maze along the previously determined optimal path. Scoring is based on 1/30th of the time used to search the maze prior to the start of each run (maze time), and the time of that run (run time). If the mouse has crashed or been manually restarted (touched) prior to the start of a run, a penalty of 2 seconds is added to the score.
The 2023 Micromouse competition will take place on Monday, March 20th from 7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. in the Expo Hall.