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Robot Contests in the age of COVID
Robot contests can be great ways to learn practical lessons in the spirit of competition… but what do they look like now that COVID is here?
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Micromouse contest update 2
Monday again and I’ve got hot fresh tasty news about the micromouse contest.
Last week I posted about making the floor of the micromouse maze. Since then we had some exciting moments figuring out how to make the walls and pegs.
Luke designed a jig that sits on the sled for the table saw and makes it easy to get the exact groove cut needed for the pegs. We tried to make the pegs from 1/2″ birch ply but the material was too brittle and chipped to shreds. In the video above you can see we’ve switched to MDF.
To keep manufacturing simple we used the exact same groove on the wall pieces. The gap between each peg and wall is 3mm thick, 5cm tall, and 6mm wide. As it turns out, a laser cut piece of acrylic is a perfect fit. The acrylic comes with a protective layer on both sides. The layer adds just enough material to make the fit snug so we won’t need any glue. Excellent!
How many micromouse maze pegs?
Having a system to make walls and pegs is great. How many do we actually need to make? The rules say there are 16×16 rooms with a wall around the outside edge. That means there are 17 * 17 = 289 pegs. What about walls?
Absolute maximum
Well, there are 16 wall segments to go across and 16+1 rows of walls, so that’s 16×17 for just the horizontal walls. times that by two to get the maximum number of walls, that’s 16x17x2 = 544.
Realistic maximum
In reality there won’t need to be so many walls. Every room has to be reachable from at least one other room. The easiest way to draw this would be a snaking S shape.
Now it’s easy to count them out. There are 16×4 wall pieces around the outside, and 15×15 pieces inside the maze. That’s 289 wall segments. Funny coincidence: that’s the same number of pegs!
Final thoughts
Next step is to paint everything regulation colors and get a timing system to record each race.
A big hello to everyone from Makerfair joining us for the first time. Hello!
Follow me on instagram if you want a to see the acylic pieces as they’re being made.
In the News
Micromouse contest update 1
An update on the 2016 micromouse contest coming to Vancouver Mini Maker Faire June 11-12. The contest poster, tips, and details on the maze.
First, the poster. Please share with everybody!
Second, here’s a great way to get around the 2s penalty for touching the robot when it’s in the maze.
Third, the maze itself is coming together. We’re having great fun building a maze that’s interchangeable and portable. This contest has been run in various places around the world for 30 years and yet no one’s published a satisfying tutorial how to build the track.
Special thanks to MicrmouseUSA.com for the photo of their robot.
