🚀 go-pugleaf

Funny you should ask.  Just last night I attended our monthly meeting
of the Seattle Robotics Society.  The main event last night was the
running of a maze contest.  My partner and I have built a mouse to
run this maze (although not successfully yet :-)).  The rules are
pretty simple.  The walls of the maze are one inch plywood on two foot
centers.  They are painted in various colors of gloss enamel.  You can't
move the walls or use internal combustion engines.  That's about it.

The Mice themselves range from dumb motors and switches with no processors
to some pretty ambitious full blown ai.  My advice would be to keep it
simple.  Our Robot is a basic Z80 with some H bridges to drive the two
motors, and some reflective IR sensors to detect walls.  Three wheels
are better than four because if the floor is uneven, you might lift a 
drive wheel off the floor during a turn and get confused about your
position and orientation.  This can't happen with a three wheeled
configuration.  We have a four wheeled robot, but ended up installing
spring loaded suspension on one of the castors to get around that problem.

I'd be glad to talk to anyone out there about particular problems or
ideas you might have.  See my addresses below.  Telephone is OK too if
you don't mind the expense.


Keith Payea
Applied Microsystems Corp.
P.O. Box C-1002
Redmond, WA  98073-1002
(206)882-5249

	...ihnp4!uw-beaver!tikal!amc!keith

"The only things which separates us from the animals are 
mindless superstition and pointless ritual."
				Latka Gravas