A design overview of a Micromouse: University of the Pacific electronics team designs a jewel of a mouse

The second annual IEEE Micromouse Competition, which took place at California State University at Sacramento in April 1985, included an entry built by the University of the Pacific (UOP) Micromouse Team, of which I was a member. IEEE rules specify a “Micromouse” to be a self-contained robot with a maximum superstructure length and width of ten inches. Each mouse is given three runs through the maze, which has outside dimensions of eight feet by eight feet (although the entire maze has not been used in a Region Six competition) with six-and-a-half inches of spacing between walls (Fig. 1). The winner is the mouse which completes any one of its three runs in the shortest time.