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Design and practice from the micromouse competition to the undergraduate

curriculum

Conference Paper · October 2015

DOI: 10.1109/FIE.2015.7344099

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 Design and Practice from the Micromouse
Competition to the Undergraduate Curriculum

Shenghua Dai, Bingxian Zhao, Zhengjiao Li, Ming Dai

School of Electronic and Information Engineering
Beijing Jiaotong University
Beijing, China, 100044
Email: zhaobingxian@bjtu.edu.cn

Abstract—This article has probed an innovative conversion
from micromouse competition to a systematic curriculum design
that integrates practice with theory. Micromouse competition is
an event where small robot mice are designed to solve a 16x16
maze. The process includes multi-disciplinary knowledge such as
electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering and
algorithm design. Limited by the competition rules, micromouse
is easy to learn but difficult to master, which provides a high
suitability with the teaching processes of foundation courses of
embedded system for undergraduate students. This paper
elaborates the emphasis, difficulties and innovation of the
conversion process, of which the core is student engagement. In
the class, students must take part in the whole micromouse
design progress to comprehend the interactive method of
hardware and software of embedded devices and strengthen the
ability of applying professional skills. Students are required to
participate in the entire micromouse building process, including
welding, assembling, environment building, debugging and
finishing the competition in groups. This curriculum focuses on
training students’ research interests, competition skills and
teamwork spirit. Final examination scores are mainly based on
each group’s ranking in the final round, and technology
innovators will be given appropriate incentives.
Keywords—Micromouse; Academic competitions;
Innovative teaching; Practice course
I. INTRODUCTION
Micromouse is a science and technology competition
project which began in late 1970s. It quickly swept the world
after the birth. “Principles and Practice of Micromouse” is an
innovation practice course designed based on the micromouse
competition for the undergraduate students. As a device of
mechanical and electrical integration, participating in the
development process of micromouse can train the students'
ability of innovative practice. Theoretical knowledge is applied
in practical operation in this curriculum, which is mandatory
for electronic engineering students. Moreover, the micromouse
contains a wide range of disciplines. Therefore, systems
integration capability and academic vision expanding are also
concerned in this course.
In simple terms, micromouse competition is an event where
small robot mice could solve a 16x16 maze (Fig. 1). It needs to
complete several tasks such as maze searching, path
memorizing and maze solving. Winner is the fastest one [1].
Fig. 1. Standard maze for micromouse competition.
II. ADVANTAGES OF MICROMOUSE
The reason why micromouse is introduced to classroom
and applied to undergraduate practice teaching is that
micromouse provides a high suitability with the teaching
requirements of electric and electronic majors in many aspects.
The coverage of the knowledge points is the first reason.
Micromouse must have the following capabilities to
complete the competition tasks [2].
• Stable and fast walking
• Accurate judgment
• Path memorizing
• Maze solving ability
In order to satisfy these requirements, the design of
micromouse have to involve several subjects including circuit
design, motion control, mechanical design, sensor applications,
algorithms optimization and programming. These hardware
and software design skills are just necessary for an electronics
engineer. Based on the study of Williams, A, B [3], it can
significantly improve students' technical level by using robots
in engineering teaching. The process of micromouse design
can show a basic development process for electromechanical
systems to students clearly, and exercise their comprehensive
ability of professional skills.
Secondly, micromouse possesses a simple structure and
clear mandate. So it is relatively easy to understand for tyros.
The students can achieve a simple control for this mobile robot
through a unified basic teaching mold. In the same time,
micromouse is a racing competition. Under the premise of
accomplishing basic tasks, the pursuit for better performance

978-1-4799-8454-1/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

and better algorithm is almost a never-ending improvement A. Course preparation.
direction. The characteristic of easy to learn but difficult to Because of the difference between micromouse contest and
master ensures good compatibility with students in different classroom, lots of course preparation should be completed
stages and different abilities in the classroom. beforehand, including micromouse modules subdivision,
Thirdly, combination of theory and practice is one of the routines splitting and process standardization (Fig. 2.).
most important features of the experimental curriculum.
Students can achieve the real-time transformation from the Hardware
voids theoretical knowledge to practical application ability by Modules
micromouse platform. This conversion process is visualized. Modules
Students can clearly observe how their modifications impact Subdivision
the operation of the micromouse, Software
Routines
Last but not least, electrical and electronic major generally
use experimental box or development board as the platform for
experimental courses. Compared with this, micromouse has Course
Preparation
incomparable advantages in interests, competition and Teaching
Mold
teamwork. Moreover, since this course grew out of a
competition, it can be considered an example of "gamification"
of learning. Dominguez Adrian's research [4] shows that this
teaching method can effectively increase student motivation Process Design
and engagement. Once the students get interested in the Standardization Environment
curriculum, the purpose of their study could be transformed
from getting good grades into meeting their own interests.
Obviously, it will be beneficial to both class atmosphere and Debugging
teaching effectiveness. Process

In summary, as a teaching platform for experimental

course, it has an ideal performance in coverage of expertise,
friendliness of the development process, practical ability and
interests. Based on the above analysis, micromouse is boldly
introduced to the undergraduate teaching. A practice
curriculum named “Principles and Practice of Micromouse”
has been opened in the past two years.
III. TRANSFORMATION FROM THE CONTEST TO
CLASSROOM
Although the micromouse possess a natural advantage as a
teaching platform, but it was developed for a technology
competition after all. Its original organization and participation
process have a large difference from classroom.
In the university, participations in science and technology
competition mostly start from the students’ own interests.
Loose organization and participation mode result in the lack of
competition documentation and process standards. At the same
time, the goal of competition is generally simple and clear, so
most students focus only on the performance but show little
interests in principles. The lack of theoretical knowledge has
become a very common phenomenon.
But different from technology contest, classroom has a
broader audience and more stringent requirements. The
classroom content must be systematic and theoretical with
standard teaching documents, presentation slides, etc. The
teacher should lead the classroom, act as technical heritage
links, teach theoretical knowledge and basic operation and
guide students to complete practical tasks. Teaching methods
should be universal and reproducible. In order to improve the
time efficiency, appropriate performance standards should be
developed with some specific procedure.
Fig. 2. Course preparation for Principles and Practice of
Micromouse.
In the process of participating in contest, participants
generally pay more attention to the overall performance and
parameters of the micromouse. Someone even just focus on the
most important adjustment of sensors and motors, but never
note the structure, principle and function of other modules.
This approach is understandable for a contest with short
process and clear purpose. But as a practical course,
competition process needs to be manifested in the form of
academic hours. Therefore, such modules subdivision must be
completed at first.
The first is the division of hardware modules. The
micromouse is subdivided into the following modules based on
functional clustering [5].
• Power: Provide the power to maintain the operation of
the micromouse, including the power supply circuit and
a battery.
• Control module: It is the control core of micromouse,
including a micro-controller and its minimum system.
• Motor driver: All motor behavior of micromouse is
controlled by this module, which consists of two motors
and a drive circuit.
• Sensor: Detect the operational status and the external
environment of micromouse by six infrared sensors.
• HCI: Display status information for assisting in
debugging. Various buttons, lights, and LED digital
display tubes are contained therein.
 • Interface: Provide several common communication
interfaces including serial, SPI and JTAG.
• Mechanical structure: Various mechanical devices are
used to assemble the components into a complete
micromouse.
This division is based on progressive approach to display
micromouse’s composition, theory and application methods.
The development and debugging process of an
electromechanical system is presented through this division.
The routine splitting should be also completed in the course
preparation. Based on the above modules division, the original
complete program is split into multiple subroutines for
different modules. Each routine corresponds to only one or a
few simple tasks, which can show the different functions of
each module and their relationships more clearly and directly. Fig. 4. Micromouse Curriculum Kit.

Moreover, because the micromouse competition with a
high degree of openness almost has no constraints for
micromouse design, the present micromouse are vastly
different in hardware structure, development environment,
design philosophy and debugging method. In terms of an
undergraduate course, such characteristic is not friendly
enough. So a series of standardized work is very necessary for
micromouse.
• Standard teaching mold. Combined with available
micromouse technology [6], a number of standard
micromouse for classroom are completed prior to
commencement (Fig. 3.). Unified batteries, chargers,
emulators and related auxiliary debugging device are
fully equipped at the same time (Fig. 4.).
• Standard design environment. Type, version, and
installation procedures of IDE software, device drivers
and related link library files are ordained.
• Standard debugging process. Adjustment of each
module is provided with a standard template with
detailed regulation steps. These templates can
effectively reduce the difficulty of the entry in the early
courses.
Standardization process does bring a lot of benefits to the
classroom according to the teaching experience acquired
during the past two years. First of all, students may encounter
roughly the same faults in the unified debugging process. This
facilitates problem solving. Then, a detailed "manual" is
probably the friendliest ‘Getting Started’ for the novice. And it
can avoid some of improper explorations to waste valuable
class time or even the damage of teaching equipments. Sum up,
teaching process standardization makes limited teaching
resources to maximize utilization which greatly enhance the
teaching efficiency.
B. Realization in classroom.
To enable students to understand how an electromechanical
system containing the design of software, hardware and
mechanical components is designed from scratch, the entire
course is divided into several parts as hardware assembly,
environmental construction, parameter adjustment, algorithm
optimization and real competition (Fig. 5.).
Commencement Real Competition
Micromouse
Components

Hardware Algorithm
Assembly Optimization

Installation Interpretation Iterative

Package Algorithm Debugging

Environmental Parameter
Construction Adjustment

Fig. 3. Standard micromouse PCB board.

Debugging
Method

Fig. 5. Course preparation for Principles and Practice of

Micromouse.
• Hardware assembly
At the beginning of the course, students get just some
scattered parts, rather than a directly available
micromouse. They are asked to weld and assemble
these parts together into a complete micromouse based
on the BOM and assembly drawings by themselves. Of
course, this micromouse would accompany them to
complete all the subsequent courses.
• Environmental construction
Before the micromouse commissioning work begins, a
series of software installation and configuration must be
completed on the computer. In this part of the course,
the teacher would instruct students to install the driver
of emulator, C language compiler (IAR Embedded
Workbench 32K Free version) and some of the libraries
used to support the work of the core controller, etc. The
reason why software installation should be taught as a
dedicated part is that different computer operating
systems express different compatibilities for the
software. The installation process may give rise to
various problems. Uniformly solving these problems in
the class can effectively improve the efficiency of the
classroom.
• Parameter adjustment
After the hardware assembly and development
environment building are done, the course officially
entered into the commissioning phase. It is very
difficult and inefficient to modify the program logic
directly for people new to micromouse. Students are
provided with a basic version of the operating
procedures in the beginning. This program is only able
to complete the most basic tasks with inefficiencies. A
variety of control parameters in the program are
required to make the appropriate adjustments due to the
tiny differences in hardware. The design purpose of this
part of the course is to guide students to develop an
understanding of micromouse by modifying the values
in the program. After this phase of training, students
have been able to skillfully use the IDE software
programming. And they may also be very clear for the
general debugging method and debugging steps. Their
micromouse can successfully complete a simple maze
task in a more stable state.
• Algorithm optimization
In addition to a body with stable operation, micromouse
also needs a smart brain to help itself perform complex
calculations and solve the maze. This part of course
would surely involve the program logic modifications.
To complete this part of classroom tasks, students need
to have a clear understanding about the overall structure
of the program. And mathematical knowledge learning
in other courses may be used to optimize the calculation
method legitimately. It can be said that this part is the
most essential part of the whole curriculum which can
help students bring up code reading capability,
programming capability and conversion capability from
the theoretical knowledge to practical application.
Of course, with the modification of program logic, the
control parameters may also need to be amended
accordingly. These processes are closely linked. And
iterative improvement is necessary. Each element
should be taken into consideration in the latter part of
debugging.
• Real competition
As a contest-based curriculum, the best way to inspect
the outcome is contest ranking. Moreover, this example
of "gamification" of learning do needs a clear indicator
to measure students' learning outcomes. So, all teams
will be scheduled for a complete micromouse contest in
the last class of each semester. The competition process
is strictly enforced in accordance with the standard
rules.
For the sake of fairness, the competition maze map and
the order of appearance were determined by lot before
the game started. Than the maze should be built on the
spot. Each team played the game according to the order
of the draw with three competition opportunities or
fifteen minutes at most. The game used a laser sensor to
detect the timing. The team which finished the game
with the shortest time was the winner
The final results of this competition would account for a
pretty big proportion of the student's course grade
evaluation.
IV. TEACHING METHODS
The main content of this course is to show the general
process of electromechanical systems design with micromouse
as an experimental platform. Through the hands-on
experiments, students can gain a profound understanding of
how software and hardware are combined into a specific
functional electromechanical system. Team is the basic unit of
this course. The core concept of the curriculum is to create an
atmosphere of good teamwork, healthy and interest-driven
competition, and encourage innovation.
In the teaching process, every three students are teamed up
as a group. They will work together to complete the teaching
tasks in the whole semester. As some tasks cannot be
completed by a single person, team members must learn to
communicate and collaborate. They will face the competition
assessment together in the end of the semester. Moreover, since
the final competition rankings will largely determine the
grades, in order to get a good score, students must defeat other
competitors instead of an examination paper. Improving
learning motivation by the sense of competition is the
significance of this teaching model.
The interest-based classroom climate is another major
driving force in independent study. Appropriate started
difficulty allows students to adapt to the classroom content
quickly. As the modular, progressive and visualization target
division, students can get a great sense of accomplishment by
completing each task, which can help student maintain
continuous enthusiasm. All teaching equipments are
assembled, kept and maintained by the students themselves.
The sense of belonging and responsibility is also able to
motivate students to maintain interest and participate into the
class activities.
Although the neat process facilitates the classroom a lot,
students’ divergent thinking is locked out, too. Conservative
strategy may be able to achieve better competition results. But
in such a practice classroom, the new ideas and methods with
some bright spots are the most exciting. In order to encourage
innovation, all reasonable unique improvements had been used
as an important indicator of the final score.
The most important is that these ideas are not stuck in the
theoretical design stage, but have truly happened in every
classroom lesson.
V. TEACHING ACHIEVEMENT SUMMARY
In the process of teaching practice, students have
completely experienced the whole development process of
electromechanical systems from hardware assembly and
hardware and software debugging to real competition.
Theoretical knowledge has been vividly embodied by the
micromouse platform. In teaching content, the works such as
hardware debugging, software development and algorithm
optimization can effectively train students' abilities of system
integration and engineering practice.
In teaching methods, group collaboration, fixed allocation
and reasonable milestones are used to mobilize the enthusiasm
of independent learning and research interests while cultivating
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teamwork and competition sense. Through this classroom
form, the students have maintained a high degree of enthusiasm
in the classroom. And great teaching effectiveness can be
achieved.
By training in this course, the proportion of students to
complete the end contest is 100%. The students from this
course have obtained excellent results in 2014 Beijing
Micromouse Competition. On the basis of the original
micromouse technology, multiple students innovative practice
projects have been derived, some of which have applied for
patents.
REFERENCES
[1] Wang, RM. Application of IEEE Standard Micromouse in the
Engineering Practice Teaching[J]. RESEARCH AND EXPLORATION
IN LABORATORY, 2014, 33(9): 117-121
[2] Zhou, LG. Develop design guidelines of micromouse[Z]. Guangzhou:
Guangzhou Zhi Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd., 2009.
[3] Williams, A, B. The qualitative impact of using LEGO MINDSTORMS
robots to teach computer engineering[J]. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
EDUCATION, 2003, 46(1): 206-206
[4] Dominguez, A. Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications
and outcomes[J]. COMPUTERS & EDUCATION, 2013, 63(1): 380-392
[5] Lin, GE. Design and Implementation of a Micromouse[D].
Taiwan:Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, 2010.
[6] Zong, L. MicroMouse Based on ARM of IEEE Standard[D]. Xi'an:Xi`an
Shiyou University, 2011.