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MICROMOUSE TO BE HOSTED BY IEEE/RAB/SAC
Kim, welcome to the MicroMousers community. MicroMousers, this is Kim
Janik, the Region 6 Student Representative to SAC. You have now been
formally introduced.
Kim,
Be careful what you ask for ;-) This is going to be a really long reply.
First off, I am cc:ing this to Dave Otten and Hargit Singh because I think
they are the two most active MicroMousers in North America. I am also
including the UC Davis and UK distribution lists, just to show how much
activity there already is and get more people an option to chime in on the
topic.
My proposal is for the Student Activities Committee to be the host of the
MicroMouse rules. In assuming this role, I would like SAC to place the
rules on their web site and promote the MicroMouse contest in the mailings
that SAC sends out to each and every IEEE Student Branch. I specifically
do not want SAC to assume responsibility for rewards, awards or other
monetary compensation involved in the individual contests. This is not a
request of SAC to provide mazes to schools.
Currently the main source of MicroMouse information is through Dave Otten
and APEC. It is my assumption that while he has done an admirable job, it
is not as popular as it could be because it is not promoted and "owned" by
the correct organization within the IEEE. APEC is a special meeting held
periodically by three IEEE societies bonding together specifically for that
one show. None of the associated societies individually promotes or owns
the MicroMouse contest. This causes confusion without a central clearing
house. There is no reason why Dave cannot continue to do exactly what he
has done all along, but it would be much more beneficial for an IEEE
sponsored undergraduate design contest to be hosted by the IEEE Student
Activities Committee.
Now I will get off my soapbox and answer some of your questions Kim ;-).
Where are the rules? You could enter Micromouse on any search engine and
get:
http://www.ee.rochester.edu:8080/users/weisberg/mouse.html
http://www.uml.edu/Dept/EE/IEEE/projects.htm
http://www.ncc.com/misc/rcfaq.html
http://nis-www.lanl.gov/robot/
http://www.dcs.rhbnc.ac.uk/micromouse/
http://members.tripod.com/~rksingh21/micromouse.htm
Dave Otten is recognized as one of the main keepers of the rules, so what
ever is on his hard drive goes. I am sure there are at least another dozen
people that all are active with MicroMice contests and keep rules. The net
effect of this is deviations from contest to contest. Do we allow wall
followers or not? Is the maze 14x14 cells (2 sheets of standard plywood)
or 16x16 cells? Are kit mice allow, treated as a different category or
forbidden? There is just too much room for flexibility that would keep
someone in one contest and make them look foolish if they went to compete
in a different area.
There are 5 Areas in Region 6. Two of the five have MicroMouse contests.
Regions 1, 3 and 7 also have hold contests on a regular basis. Parts of
Regions 8 & 10 host them (England, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan), but big
chunks of the world have never even heard of it.
The contests are discussed at the SLTW meetings held in conjunction with
the Fall Area meetings and the competitions actually are held at the Spring
Area meetings. This gives the teams a whole school year (almost) to design
and build their mice. The Area Chair and Area SAC are responsible for
preparing for the contest. A maze needs to be found and delivered to the
right location. There are five mazes that I know of in the Central Area.
We used the newest one, from CSU Chico, at the last meeting. You need a
timekeeper / master of ceremonies, scribe and a couple of people for crowd
control. It helps to have a video camera monitor the maze and project on
the wall above it. The audience can get quite large and people will crowd
around the maze if they cannot see. It also helps to have people prepared
to make certificates and sign checks right then and there, so the awards
can be presented right as the competition ends.
I have made an attempt to arm you with a little more information. I am
also sure you will be inundated with messages between now and the SAC
meeting next weekend, so that you will clearly know what this is all about
;-).
Thanks for your help and I will be in touch.
John
At 12:51 PM 9/28/00 -0700, Kimberly Janik wrote:
>
>John-
>
>I hope you have a few minutes, as I have a lot of questions to ask.
>There are two reasons for mailing you. One, I want to walk into the
>SAC meeting as prepared as possible regarding your micromouse rules
>request. Second, I am looking into what is involved in starting up
>a micromouse competition in all areas (and maybe regional?). I thank
>you in advance for addressing all of my questions.
>
>At the SAC, I would like to bring up the idea of having them own the
>rules for the micromouse competition, as you requested. This seems
>like a very logical choice since the competition is for students.
>One question that comes to mind is, "Where are they now?" You had
>mentioned that Dave Otten (MIT) or Harjit Singh (Microsoft) currently
>own them. Is there a copy online? Maybe they already know where to
>get a copy of the rules from, but I don't and I just wanted to have
>the answer ready in case it is asked. It would be great if I could
>get a copy to look at before the meeting. Are the rules you mentioned
>just the competition rules, or are you also requesting that SAC own
>the maze "masks" or patterns used to create new mazes?
>
>As mentioned above, I am looking into starting up a micromouse
>competition in all the areas and, ideally, regional. As I understand
>it, your area (Central) is the only one that currently has a
>micromouse competition. Is that correct? It sounds as though Larry
>Dalton (southern) is either working on one or interested in one, since
>I remember him saying that he had gotten new mazes. Do you know his
>current status regarding competitions? If not, I can always ask him.
>Do you hold the competition at your Fall or Spring meeting? I guess
>what I'm thinking is that, with your help, I can work up some sort of
>guidelines or "how to run a micromouse competition" information that
>each area can then use to get theirs started. Of course, if such a
>document exists then point me to it and I'll be that much further along!
>Thinking along these lines, I came up with several broad categories and
>(of course) a whole bunch of questions.
>
>Timing
>How much time/warning are students given before the competition? In
>other words, how long do they have to build their mouse? What are
>the deadlines for entry in the competition? Then, on the planning
>side, when are judges found? When are the winners announced? I
>would presume right after the competition, but I want to make certain.
>
>Advertising
>Timing got me thinking about advertising. When do you start letting
>students know about the competition? How do you get the word out?
>I would guess that you send out information to branch counselors
>and maybe have something online, but would like to know for sure.
>How do you get the faculty excited enough about the competition that
>they really DO pass the word along to their students?
>
>Logistics
>Basically, I'm curious how many people overall are needed to run the
>competition. How many judges do you normally get? Do you need timers?
>If so, how many? I think I covered most of my rules questions above.
>
>Budget
>Of course, I'm aware that all of this is not free. How much does
>it cost on average to run a competition at your area meeting? Which
>budget does it come out of? How much (if any) is spent on
>advertising (flyers, etc)? Who pays for travel expenses for the
>competiting students? Are there prizes given? If so, what are
>typical prize values? Do the students pay an entrance fee to join the
>competition? Do you supplement the budget using any industry funding?
>
>That is all of the questions I have thought of so far. I am trying
>to be thorough and really think about all the aspects involved, but
>I'm sure there are other things that I haven't even thought of. If
>you have any additional information or resources for me, that would
>be great. I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me about
>this. The micromouse competition sounds like it is very educational,
>not to mention a lot of fun. I would love to see it become more
>popular in upcoming years.
>
>Thanks,
> Kim
>
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
>| Kim Janik | "If I want to hear the pitter patter of |
>| janik@cs.pdx.edu | little feet, I'll put shoes on my cat." |
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
>
X-Sender: otten@po10.mit.edu (Unverified)
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 1998 23:09:55 -0500
To: "John L. Wright, Jr." <j.wright@ieee.org>
From: David Otten <otten@MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Literature etc. on Micromouse?
X-Attachments: D:\Program Files\MITEE\DOC\apecfile; D:\Program
Files\MITEE\DOC\Rules.doc;
I am sorry for the delay, but here is the info on the APEC contest. The
rules are included. I will also send you a Word file.
I think that SAC would be a perfect place for a central contact point
for micromouse activities. I have gotten many requests for information
this fall from students around the country and I would like to give them
one place I could refer them to that would know all the different
regions and where contests were being organized for each region. This
seems like a very natural and useful function for SAC to take over.
With regard to the rules, we do used scoring rules at APEC which include
a penalty for touching the mouse and a penalty for time taken to search
the maze. I would recommend that these two penalties be dropped for a
student competition because they make the contest more difficult to
explain and score and the extra level of sophistication which these rules
promote, is not consistent with students building mice in a one year time
frame. At most contests only one or two mice seem to get to the center.
I think it would be good to keep it simple. In Japan the expert contest
has all the same rules as the novice except that they only get 5 tries or
7 minutes, which ever comes first.
At 10:55 PM 10/23/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi Dave,
>
>Could you please send me what ever MicroMouse rules you have been using for
>APEC meetings (or point me to the appropriate web site)? I would also like
>to include an endorsement from you, for SAC to be the central contact point
>from now on. I could extract something from one of your previous emails,
>but I just want to make sure it is clear, and everyone is in agreement to
>do this.
>
>Thanks in advance.
>
>John
>
>
>
>>X-Sender: ldurrett@rab.ieee.org
>>Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 17:20:24 -0400
>>To: j.wright@ieee.org
>>From: Laura Durrett <ldurrett@ieee.org>
>>Subject: Fwd: Re: Literature etc. on Micromouse?
>>
>>Hi John:
>>The SAC meeting is 6, 7, 8 November here in New Jersey. If you can send
>>something on Micromouse, I'll ask the RSACs and RSRs to discuss it.
>>
>>Thanks!
>>
>>Laura
>>
>>
>>>X-Sender: johnwieee@earthlink.net
>>>X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.1 (32)
>>>Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 06:58:50 -0700
>>>To: Laura Durrett <ldurrett@ieee.org>
>>>From: "John L. Wright, Jr." <j.wright@ieee.org>
>>>Subject: Re: Literature etc. on Micromouse?
>>>
>>>Hi Laura,
>>>
>>>I will have to dig through some very well burried boxes to find everything.
>>> I haven't touched any of the MicroMouse stuff in three or four years, and
>>>it was 1990-91 when I did mine at Cal Poly.
>>>
>>>If they are willing to consider MicroMouse, the most important thing SAC
>>>could do is to standardize the rules. I will compose a description of the
>>>main, common guidelines, and then include some of the variations (with my
>>>commnets on which have merit, and which don't). Coming up with a scheme to
>>>supply each Region/Area(/school?) with a common maze to design, practice
>>>and run competions on would also be a HUGE help, but would cost through the
>>>nose. Maybe the Life Members Fund could help out with a one time grant?
>>>
>>>Thanks for the news about Wuj. I will make sure he is duly embarrased in
>>>front of the Region 6 Central Area meeting in a couple of weeks.
>>>
>>>John
>>>
>>>
>>>At 11:35 AM 9/15/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>>>Hi John!
>>>>If you can also send me a copy of the micromouse information, I'll include
>>>>it in the agenda for the next SAC meeting in November. Timing will be
good
>>>>as SAC decided at the April meeting that they really want to have some
kind
>>>>of international or global Student Branch activity and will be seriously
>>>>talking about details and possibly a design contest. They could consider
>>>>micromouse and if I have some general information on what goes on in
Region
>>>>6, it would help with their discussions. Levent is really behind the idea
>>>>too and you are right, Levent is running SAC differently.
>>>>
>>>>Thanks for offering to help the Berkeley Student Branch with their
>>>>micromouse project. No surprise, but under Wuj's guidance, the Branch is
>>>>really doing great things. The Branch nominated and Wuj won the
>>>>Outstanding Branch Counselor Award this year too.
>>>>
>>>>Thanks for your help and best regards,
>>>>Laura
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>At 11:10 PM 9/10/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>>Hi Wuj & Laura,
>>>>>
>>>>>FYI: I had propose at several of the SAC meetings, that they officially
>>>>>adopt MICROMOUSE as a SAC endorsed and supervised student contest.
>>>>>Unfortunately, it was received with NIH and several substitute contests
>>>>>were batted around. I think they settled on the web site design
>contest as
>>>>>the only one sponsored by SAC. Too bad, as it is the best place to host
>>>>>this event, but they just don't understand or want to do it?
>>>>>
>>>>>I will send you some great pointers and the two main contacts for
>>>>>micromouse under seperate cover, probably sometime this weekend after I
>>>>>pull it all together. I am also willing to come up to Bezerkley on the
>>>>>weekends to meet with teh Micromouse team and help out.
>>>>>
>>>>>John
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>At 04:00 PM 9/9/98 -0400, Laura Durrett wrote:
>>>>>>Wuj:
>>>>>>No, unfortunately I do not have any specific information. I am copying
>>two
>>>>>>people that might be able to help with this, Barney Adler who has worked
>>>>>>with Student Branches in the Philadelphia area who were just starting
out
>>>>>>on a micromouse and John Wright who has worked with Student Branches in
>>>>>>California. I am hoping that they might have some information or
>contacts
>>>>>>they can share with you. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. Barney
>>and
>>>>>>John, thanks for any help you can provide to Joe and the UC-Berkeley
>>>>>>Student Branch.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Best regards to all,
>>>>>>Laura
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>At 09:00 AM 9/3/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>>>>Hi Laura,
>>>>>>>Q: Does SAC have anything on the Micromouse apart from rules and
>>>>>>>news stories? I was hoping to find a bibliography, or published
>>>>>>>papers, etc that could be helpful to students starting out (as we
>>>>>>>are) in the design/construction of same. I'm trying to avoid
>>>>>>>doing a lit search. I'm a member of IEEE Education Society and would
>>>>>>>probably begin there but thought I could save time by trying SAC first.
>>>>>>>Or perhaps you can serve up a name of a MM "veteran?"
>>>>>>>Thanks for any help.
>>>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>>>wuj
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>**************************************
>>>>>>Laura J. Durrett, Manager
>>>>>>IEEE Student Services
>>>>>>445 Hoes Lane/P.O. Box 1331
>>>>>>Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331
>>>>>>
>>>>>>e-mail: l.durrett@ieee.org
>>>>>>fax: 732-463-3657
>>>>>>phone: 732-562-5523
>>>>>>
>>>>>>IEEE: Networking the World
>>>>>>www.ieee.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *Fostering Technological Innovation
>>>>>> *Enabling Members' Careers
>>>>>> *Promoting Community Worldwide
>>>>>>**************************************
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>*************************************************************
>>>>>* John L. Wright, Jr. *
>>>>>*Product Apps. Engr. Dept. Mgr. *
>>>>>*Cypress Semiconductor *
>>>>>*(408) 943-2886 xjw@cypress.com *
>>>>>*************************************************************
>>>>>* IEEE SF Bay Area Council SCV Director 1998/99 *
>>>>>* j.wright@ieee.org (email for life) *
>>>>>* (408) 993-7227 (personal voicemail) *
>>>>>*************************************************************
>>>>>
>>>>**************************************
>>>>Laura J. Durrett, Manager
>>>>IEEE Student Services
>>>>445 Hoes Lane/P.O. Box 1331
>>>>Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331
>>>>
>>>>e-mail: l.durrett@ieee.org
>>>>fax: 732-463-3657
>>>>phone: 732-562-5523
>>>>
>>>>IEEE: Networking the World
>>>>www.ieee.org
>>>>
>>>> *Fostering Technological Innovation
>>>> *Enabling Members' Careers
>>>> *Promoting Community Worldwide
>>>>**************************************
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>*************************************************************
>>>* John L. Wright, Jr. *
>>>*Product Apps. Engr. Dept. Mgr. *
>>>*Cypress Semiconductor *
>>>*(408) 943-2886 xjw@cypress.com *
>>>*************************************************************
>>>* IEEE SF Bay Area Council SCV Director 1998/99 *
>>>* j.wright@ieee.org (email for life) *
>>>* (408) 993-7227 (personal voicemail) *
>>>*************************************************************
>>>
>>**************************************
>>Laura J. Durrett, Manager
>>IEEE Student Services
>>445 Hoes Lane/P.O. Box 1331
>>Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331
>>
>>e-mail: l.durrett@ieee.org
>>fax: 732-463-3657
>>phone: 732-562-5523
>>
>>IEEE: Networking the World
>>www.ieee.org
>>
>> *Fostering Technological Innovation
>> *Enabling Members' Careers
>> *Promoting Community Worldwide
>>**************************************
>>
>>
>>
>*************************************************************
>* John L. Wright, Jr. *
>*Product Apps. Engr. Dept. Mgr. *
>*Cypress Semiconductor *
>*(408) 943-2886 xjw@cypress.com *
>*************************************************************
>* IEEE SF Bay Area Council SCV Director 1998/99 *
>* j.wright@ieee.org (email for life) *
>* (408) 993-7227 (personal voicemail) *
>*************************************************************
>
Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="apecfile";
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="apecfile"
******************************************
* John L. Wright, Jr.
* Product Apps. Engr. Dept. Mgr.
* Cypress Semiconductor
* (408) 943-2886 xjw@cypress.com
******************************************
* IEEE/R6/Central Area Chair 1999-2001
* IEEE SF Bay Area Council SCV Director 1998/99
* 1556 Halford Ave #298
* Santa Clara, CA 95051
* j.wright@ieee.org (email for life)
* (408) 993-7227 (personal voicemail)
******************************************