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Micromouse? — Parallax Forums

Micromouse?

Louis M. DavisLouis M. Davis Posts: 2
edited 2005-01-05 22:15 in BASIC Stamp
I am comtemplating making a micromouse based on a BS2, is this possible?· Basically, is there enough compute and memory to be able to create a mouse that would be competitive.· I have been doing some research on the net and I have come to the conclusion that it may not be possible with the basic stamp and that it would require a processor with much more RAM available.· I don't want to head down this path of using the BS2 if it is going to be extremely difficult to accomplish.· If the BS2 is not the way to go, are there any suggestions on a good choice for a controller?

Thanks,
Louis

Comments

  • allanlane5allanlane5 Posts: 3,815
    edited 2005-01-05 20:26
    No, a $50.00 BS2 in a mouse package would not be economic. Plus, the BS2 is single tasking.

    A PIC 16F628 has 18 pins, 200 bytes ram, 2K bytes flash, and would be good.
    A PIC 12F629 has 8 pins, can self-clock at 4 Mhz, and would work also.
    And with an off-the-shelf PIC, you can use Interrupts and precision timers.

    Also, the microcontroller should be the least of your worries. It's all that mechanics that you have to get right. Position encoders, mouse buttons, mouse ball motion translation, etc.

    P.S. note to all -- this answer is completely off base.· See below.· Sigh.

    Post Edited (allanlane5) : 1/5/2005 9:04:28 PM GMT
  • MagicRuBMagicRuB Posts: 12
    edited 2005-01-05 20:29
    I did the micromouse competition in SanFransisco in Spring 2004 with a BS2p. Sadly, the chip fried the day of the competition (it was onable to propogate accurate frequencies. I think i toasted it on the way there).

    Is this for the IEEE Student Competition? If so, where?

    A few words of advice:
    -Use stepper motors. I bought some from Digikey but was unsatisfied with them (Not Digikey's fault, they were great about the return). I ended up using the ones from Parallax. I used a UCN5804 Stepper motor controller.. worked out great.
    - Make sure you get the BS2p. I REQUIRED the extra memory slots.
    - I ended up with about 30 pages of code. I maxed out 2 of the memor slots, and half of another. In addition, I had a memory slot reserved for mapping (This is all by use of the STORE/WRITE/READ commands)
    -Range finding worked well for side scanning with the BS2p. I ended up using 4k resisters to reduce the distances to under a foot.
    -USE RECHARGABLE BATTERIES. I used 9volts and blasted through them. Motors suck serious amount of juice.
    -The FloodFill Algorithm worked out good, but requires a stack. The BS2p's 'scratch pad memory' (PUT/GET commands) came in handy.
    -Use a speaker for debugging. It came in handy when it beeped when it got to certain parts of the code so I knew what it was doing/thinking.
    -I didn't use a digital compass, but it would have come in handy. I had to keep track of which way it was facing with variables.


    If you've never done the MicroMouse, I'm sure you have a ton of questions about it. I sure did.
    Contact me on AIM: MagicRub013 if you wanna chat about it. I have lots of pics and such.
    I'm acting as the MicroMouse team's advisor this year at Fresno State. I've moved on to another larger project (using several BS2's). info on it at: http://www.bulldogbt.com

    Good Luck!
  • allanlane5allanlane5 Posts: 3,815
    edited 2005-01-05 21:05
    D'OH! So sorry, I assumed 'micromouse' meant "small desktop mouse", not "really small robot".

    Thanks for MagicRub, who truly understood the question. I'd edit my earlier post, but then somebody else would think you wanted to replace your desktop mouse... Sigh.

    You just might want to checkout the SX/B platform. Using a Ubicom SX28, it cycles at 50 MIPS, has lots more memory on-chip, and with the SX/B you can use a subset of Basic. You'll blow the doors off the other micro's in terms of processing power.
  • MagicRuBMagicRuB Posts: 12
    edited 2005-01-05 21:11
    Well.. it turned out that the processing power was just fine. The only issue was when writing to memory but it wasn't that big of a deal.

    I was able to step the motor, stobe all the IR's (3 of them) and take in readings, anc correct if nesseccary.. all while travelling forward super smoothly. The BS2p turned out to be just fine.

    Granted, you gotta dump a few bucks into the chip and a PIC is much cheaper, but coding on the BS2 is much easier and that's where you run into troubles on that project.

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    My Current Project:

    http://www.BulldogBot.com
    ·
  • Louis M. DavisLouis M. Davis Posts: 2
    edited 2005-01-05 21:54
    Thanks for the very thoughtful replies.· The micromouse competition I am planning on entering is in Austin, TX and is part of the APEC conference in March.

    http://www.apec-conf.org/2005/APEC05_Entering_The_MicroMouse_Contest.html

    I have never done anything like this before and have only had experience with the BOEbot for about a year.· I have been doing a bunch of research on the net trying to figure out how to search the maze, how to map the maze, how to find shortest route, etc. etc.· There is a ton of stuff to figure out and even if I can't create something competitive, it would still be an accomplishment to create something that could complete the maze.

    I will look at the BS2p and seriously consider using steppers in my design.· I just wanted to make sure I wasn't way off track, before I started investing a lot of time and energy in this.

    Thanks,
    Louis
  • MagicRuBMagicRuB Posts: 12
    edited 2005-01-05 21:57
    check out http://www.micromouseinfo.com/·for some usefull info.

    ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
    My Current Project:

    http://www.BulldogBot.com
    ·
  • allanlane5allanlane5 Posts: 3,815
    edited 2005-01-05 22:15
    Also, I found http://micromouse.cannock.ac.uk/index.htm

    This has nice resources for building the maze, generating mazes, mazes that have been used, etc.

    Also a nice section on solving mazes.
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