1. Final Presentation EE 296 – Micromouse Spring 2007 Friday, May 4, 2007 POST 214

2. Team Giga-Cat Team Members Mark Fujihara Christopher Ho Katherine Ishida David Ota

3. Overview Build an autonomous robot mouse that can find the center of a 16 x 16 maze and then calculate and make multiple runs using the shortest path to the center.

4. Our First Design  Top Down sensors for path/wall detection  4 sensors at each corner  3 for error correction  1 for wall detection  2 sensors in the middle for error correction during turns  Two wheels and a ball bearing for mobility  Stepper motors

5. Sensor LayoutChassis Layout Drawings and Designs

6. More Designs Top and Side View Base LayoutTop View with Sensor Blocks

7. Goals For Original Design  Move forward and back  Front and back sensors  Look sleek, not bulky  Stacked circuit boards  Put a spoiler and bumper on it  Use a flood fill algorithm to map and solve the maze  Go to the mainland and win competition  Build a killer mouse

8. What We Ended Up With  Top Down sensors for path/wall detection  3 sensors at each corner  2 for error correction, 1 for wall detection  2 sensors in the front and back for front and back wall detection  1 sensor in front and back for emergency stop  2 wheels and 2 slider pads for mobility  Stepper motors  Right wall hugger

9. Our Final Design Here are the early stages of construction…

10. Our Final Design Which eventually became our final beauty!

11. Final Design Features  Used a stacked circuit board design  L-braces to hold motors in place  Had sensors on a metal frame, adjustable according to the wall height

12. More Design Features  Put LEDs on top sensor board instead of directly over corresponding sensor  Incorporated LEDs for each motor step

13. So What Went Wrong?  Sensor layout was bad  We re-did the sensor layout  Number of sensors  Placement  Our original chassis was too big  We built a new chassis  Our “stacked” design was terrible  Hard to solder  Spacing was bad  We “sucked it up” and dealt with it

14. More Problems…  Our mouse did not move the first time  We found our power and ground rails were connected together and fixed it  One motor did not step correctly  We found a loose connection in the MOSFET  Mouse moved, but kept getting stuck  We found the mouse was too heavy, so we slowed the speed down to create more torque  Battery connections were loose  We had to put more electrical tape

15. Programming Problems  Originally pulsed each motor individually (right, left, right, left, etc.)  We changed the program so the motors stepped together  Both wheels were programmed to go clockwise, so it went in a circle  Made one go counter clockwise

16. What’s Still Wrong?  Mouse can only navigate the maze  Does not map  Does not solve the shortest path  Does not go backward  Does not win any competition (except the beauty contest!)

17. Design Suggestions  Do not use the “stacked” design  Complicated and messy, too many extra wires  Do not use too many standoffs or extra metal that adds weight  Use a Perforated Circuit Board with copper lining in the holes  It will make soldering neater and easier  Color-coding wires is very useful

18. Completion Suggestions  Do not waste time at the beginning of the semester. It is not as long as you think.  Multi-task. Have someone begin code before mouse is completely built  Work hard during spring break

19. Now, lets see our beauty in action! Mini-maze please…

20. Thank You Any Questions, Comments, Suggestions?