Micromouse for me started as a plain & simple curiosity during my second year of engineering which soon turned into a full blown no-time-for-anything-else activity. During the very early stages of development I realized that I’ll be needing a handy micromouse simulator to test my maze solving algorithms as arranging a full sized 16×16 mircomouse maze would have been impossible and impractical. Apart from that, running the algorithms on PC would have given me the flexibility to use the debug functionality offered by the Turbo C environment. Programs are rarely written 100% correct in the first go and hence, almost always require debugging of some sort.
Luckily, around the same time I came in touch with this brilliant freshman, Manish Sharma. His enthusiasm for micromouse was astounding and his ideas refreshing. He was the one who first came up with the architecture of algorithm simulator. In a few days time he developed a header file which contained the required graphical and mouse locomotion function calls. Later, I successfully implemented the modified flood fill algorithm. I would like to thank Manish for designing the basic architecture of the simulator. The algorithm used in the simulator is effectively a generic path finding and path planning tool which can be modified to solve a given unknown maze of any dimension.
After completing my third year, I got my internship at TRI Technosolutions Pvt Ltd @ IIT Bombay. There I got an opportunity to write an article on the micromouse algorithm and simulation. The article that I wrote for them can be downloaded from the link given below including all the software files. You can also view the article on the ‘Resources’ section of TRI’s website,
http://www.thinklabs.in/resources/?cat=13
It has been brought to my notice that the above link is not functioning, TRI guys are probably upgrading their website it seems. You can download the complete article with source code of the simulator from HERE.
Pingback: Micromouse and Me | Pranjal Chaubey b.i.t.Wise
Respected mr pranjal,
I am Sanjay Varghese from gujarat. I am currently pursuing diploma in electronics in final year.
i am very interested in making the micromouse as my final year project.
But you know i lack a lot on information and have specific doubts for it.
Please help me out
1. Can i Build micromouse on 8051 uc? (p89v51rd2)?
2. how do i write the source code for it? i mean what exactly is mapping?
3.how do i generate an algorithm for micromouse?
4. Is it necessary to specifically use your prescribed sensors and motors?
Hi Sanjay
1. 8051 should be fine for a wall follower micromouse. A true maze solver may not be possible because of the RAM limitations.
2. I think you should read the article once again if you didn’t understand what mapping is. Also check out the website micromouseonline.com. Its a fantastic resource for mouse builders. You can also have a look at my own micromouse article here,
https://pranjall.com/2010/12/30/micromouse/
3. Read the above article again.
4. No. As long as the sensors and the motors serve the intended purpose, you can use anyone you like.