3/17/14 Update - Micromouse Competition

Dr. Villareal, Tan, Alan, and I went to the APEC's Micromouse Competition in Fort Worth on Monday. The community was very nice and supportive.

Observations of the robots

• Almost all of their batteries were tiny, about the size of a quarter. The four Taiwan teams were using a lithium polymer 120mAh 2S (7.4V). 
• The PCBs were very low to the ground and the wheels were about 23 mm diameter.
• Some of the robots used beeping tones and LEDs to know what the robot is sensing or deciding. 
• Some of the robots used gyroscopes in order to determine direction and position.

Thoughts

• Can we detach the Stellaris from the launchpad like how the MSP430 detaches?
• Auto correcting seems to be very essential when roaming the maze.
• Many of the robot submissions were not teams of people, but rather individuals. Dr. Villareal wondered if we should we change the structure of Micromouse.

Some of the robots:

Shinichi Yamashita's robot (below) it uses a camera to take pictures of the maze walls in order to solve the maze.

3/3/14 Update

Battery
Carlo has been talking to the Remote Control Hobbies Store for help. We are taking the battery and robot there over spring break. The store owner plans on helping us get a good battery.

LEDs
Luke and Michael got the emitter to work, but the receiver's output voltage range isn't large enough.

Software
Tan has been working on pseudo code for the maze scouting/mapping. It's pretty much completed now.

Things to do

• Double check the maximum voltage for the Stellaris' built in ADC
• We will probably need a perfboard for all the sensors' resistors
• Go through the pseudo code and start translating into C

2/24/14 Update

Stellaris
Fixed the Stellaris pin by simply moving the direction pin to a different pin. We are still not sure why this happened, but this is a simple fix since there are plenty of pins available to use.

Battery
Dr. Villareal had us test some things and he concluded that the battery is probably damaged. We plan on buying a new one. Carlo has also contacted a store called Remote Control Hobbies and asked them for some help.

Sensors
Michael and Luke started working on the LEDs again. Dr. Villareal says that there is a current problem. We need to supply more current in order to get better output voltages. They were originally getting very small voltages, and we need a larger range, like 2 to 4 volts.

Software
Tan, Alex, and I discussed the software that needs work
Break down of functions:

1. Initial exploration, prioritizing toward the center
2. Arrival at center, start prioritizing squares that haven't been entered
3. Recursion from wherever robot is located in the maze to start of the maze
4. Travel to start
5. Recursion from start of the maze to center
6. Race to center

2/17/14 Update

The battery is still being difficult.
It's supposed to be around 11V and 3A/hr, but when it is connected to the robot, it's 5V and 0.1A.
When the power supply is connected to the robot, it can handle 11V to 12V and about 0.88A.
Someone suggested looking into power ratings of the battery.

A problem occurred while trying to test the battery, one of the wheels wasn't rotating backwards anymore. We tested the output voltage of the Stellaris pin that handles direction. It should be a high voltage (3.3V) for forward, and then a low voltage (millivolts) for backwards. The low voltage wasn't low enough, it was outputting about 1V. The other three motor control wires were working fine; it was just that one output.

Solutions:
Research more about this battery and ask a professor's opinion
Change the output pin on the Stellaris