Robot Rats Run Rampant!

Geeks around the world are hard at work building and training robotic rats to run mazes. No doubt we will soon have sewers infested with faster, smarter robo-rodents. At least they don’t breed…yet.

This first video is a well designed little rodent. It moves at a good pace, seeking the open section at the center of the maze (they really need some virtual cheese here). Once it finds the center, if remembers the course, calculates the best route out, and  picks up the pace.

This is a much faster one. It moves a lot more like the real thing: light on its feet and quick, but with none of the pausing to wash its face. Another one over at BotJunkie uses a vacuum to hold itself down so it doesn’t skid around the corners.

This one is almost more like a robotic gopher. It has to move the obstacles out of the way as it goes. Complicating this is that it has to make it back out of the maze and can choose where to drop it. It can end up putting the obstacle in its way further down the line, so it requires planning to win this race. The rules for microclippers can be found here.

Upadate: The below insight into the micromouse brain was found on a page about micromouse code by BotJunkie