stevebattle

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Ruri ½ "RURI for Halfsize Maze" (2007) by Fumitaka Nakajima, Japan. "In this year's preliminary round, some players were participating in a 1/2-size micro mouse, which is predicted to move to the expert class from 2009. … Ruri 1/2 (Mr. Fumitaka Nakajima) participated in the game with a self-made 1/2 size micro mouse. The search was successful, and in the second run, he achieved a time of 17.647 seconds." – Robot Watch, Report of the "28th All-Japan Micro Mouse Competition."

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Kojima Usu 4 「こじまうす4」 (2008) by Koichi Kojima, Kyoto University Mechanical Research Group, Japan. "The video shows Kojima usu 4 by Koichi Kojima, a representative of the young team. The route goes west, but it chose three diagonal runs and finished 4th with a time of 7.117 seconds." – Robot Watch, "The 27th Micro Mouse Chubu District Competition" Report.

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Kojima Usu 3 「こじまうす３」 (2007) by Koichi Kojima, Kyoto University Mechanical Research Group, Japan. Kojima Usu 3 competed in the Expert Class finals of the 2007 All-Japan Micromouse Competition, but had to retire. Like Kojima Usu 2 it uses the Centripetal Search algorithm – whenever the mouse encounters an unexplored choice it favours the direction that takes it closer to the target.

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Kojima Usu 2 「こじまうす２」 (2006) by Koichi Kojima, Kyoto University Mechanical Research Group, Japan. Kojima Usu 2 came 6th in the 2006 All Japan Micromouse Competition with a time of 10.622 seconds, also winning a "special prize."

"I participated in the tournament for 3 years. Maybe it's time to retire (I'm sure I can improve the software and do it a little faster, but I don't have time for that). I was barely able to maintain the stability of last year. However, in the preliminary round, there was a bug in the acceleration, and the time is not good." – Koichi Kojima.

The video shows the best run of Kojima Usu 2 at the 28th All-Japan Micro Mouse Competition in 2006.

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Kojima Usu 「こじまうす」 (2005) by Koichi Kojima, Kyoto University Mechanical Research Group, Japan. Kojima Usu came 14th in the 2005 All Japan Micromouse Competition with a time of 57.09 seconds, also winning a "special prize." "The wheels are not attached because they were transferred to version 2. The battery pack has also been dismantled." – Koichi Kojima.

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Momoco08 (2008) by Shinichi Kome, Japan. Momoco08 the "vacuum mouse" won the 2008 Chubu Regional Micromouse Competition with an incredible time of 5.47 seconds. In the 2008 All-Japan Micromouse Competition it achieved sixth place with a time of time of 7.104 seconds, also taking the 'Exploration Award'. The first photo above shows Momoco08 with an encoder pattern on its upper disk – to measure fan speed? The second photo shows the vacuum skirt around the air intake in the centre.

"The winner was Shinichi Kome's vacuum mouse Momoco08. Momoco08 generates negative pressure with a fan and sucks it onto the track surface to achieve high-speed movement and direction change. ... It is technically difficult to install a complex suction mechanism in a small mouse. Moreover, it seems that few people attempt it because when it's "searching and driving, it is just luggage" (Kome's words). However, the power of success is great. In this tournament, he achieved a great record of 5.47 seconds. Mr. Kome has been competing in Micromouse for 7 years, and it has been 6 years since he started developing vacuum types. This year was the first time it won the championship." – Robot Watch.

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Momoco 3.6x (2003) by Shinichi Kome, Japan. The 2003 Momoco 3.6x (pictured, top) has a suction device underneath. This provides active downforce, an idea first used in the Brabham BT46B "fan car" in 1978.

"Shinichi Kome, who achieved the highest result among Japanese at last year's Micromouse 2008 competition, is also one of those who grew up using [Eiichiro Morinaga's] Basic Mouse. Mr. Kome, who has become widely known for his so-called suction mouse, which runs and sucks with a small fan in its belly, initially participated in competitions with a Basic Mouse. Back then it was just, "two motors attached to wheels," recalls Mr. Morinaga, who has been paying close attention to this evolution. After that, the company made the transition to a suction-type micro mouse. As is well known, robots that move while using suction are not at all rare. This was the case with sumo robots in the past, and it was also used in line tracing robots to achieve high-speed running (its use is currently prohibited in robot tracing competitions). It is widely known that suction increases ground contact force, but "no one really wanted to use it in a mouse." The reality was, ''It was the same as driving diagonally. I had an idea, but I couldn't make it happen easily." As Mr. Itani says, "Suction requires a lot of skill,"and the technical difficulty was the bottleneck in applying it to a small micromouse. Mr. Kome created the suction mouse in 2003, but failed to pass the qualifying round. Mr. Morinaga's impression at the time was, "When I watched the race, it looked like it was going to be difficult." However, "Kome didn't give up, and each year he got faster and faster." As Mr. Itani said, it is clear that they're "getting faster and faster," and Mr. Morinaga is hopeful, saying, "There is a possibility (of taking the top spot)." " – Micromouse 30 Years History.

The video above shows Momoco07, runner-up in the circuit competition (2009), where the mouse runs around the edge of the maze.

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Mizuho 「瑞穂」 (2006) by Fumitaka Nakajima, Japan. Mizuho came 3rd in the 2006 All Japan Micromouse Competition with a time of 8.574 seconds.

"The six-wheeled mouse "Mizuho" ... has four steering wheels at the front and back for steering, and two drive wheels in the middle for accelerating and decelerating. Nakajima said he created the six-wheeled mouse to provide stable turning performance so that it could go around curves quickly. The time was 8.574 seconds, a good result for a third place finish." – Robot Watch, "The 27th All-Japan Micro Mouse Tournament" Report.

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Shion 「紫苑」 (2005) by Fumitaka Nakajima, Japan. Shion came 4th in the 2005 All Japan Micromouse Competition with a time of 8.01 seconds, also winning the New Technology Award.

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Kohaku 「琥珀」 (2004) by Fumitaka Nakajima (中島 史敬 AKA "Mr N"), Japan. Kohaku or "Amber" came second at the 2004 All Japan Micromouse Competition with a time of 9.027 seconds.

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HISUI 「翡翠」 (2003) by Fumitaka Nakajima and Shiki Nakajima, Japan. Hisui or "Jade" came 18th in the qualifying rounds of the 2003 All Japan Micromouse Competition with a time of 9.8 seconds, passing the preliminary round.

"The kick-up unit and steering mechanism are the same as those of the MM3R, but the wheelbase and tread have been changed. Since weight reduction wasn't a major consideration at the time, the weight is roughly the same as the MM3R. It's equipped with a wide range of sensors, Bluetooth, and a large LCD, so it's more of an experimental model, but I think it's packed with elements that could surpass the original, so it all depends on the software that controls it. We'll do our best to complete the software in the 20 days until the full launch." – Fumitaka Nakajima.

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MM3R (2003) by Fumitaka Nakajima, Takanori Kojima (Nagoya Institute of Technology), and You Igu (Japanese System Design), Japan. MM3R came 13th in the 2003 All Japan Micromouse competition with a time of 28.097 seconds.

"MM3R is broken. I'm stuck with a faulty sensor. I've entered the East Japan Regional Tournament, and I'm trying to save face by fixing it. I'm working as fast as I can, but then I suddenly realize that for some reason I'm missing the wall ahead of me. Out of curiosity, I tried displaying the sensor values on the console, and sure enough, only one of the front wall sensors showed a clear value. I pressed the board hard, and it clicked, so I checked it closely with the console and found that the soldered part of the capacitor was a bit suspicious. It seems that maybe there wasn't enough solder, which caused it to malfunction. So, I removed it from the chassis and tried to solder it, but then even the crimped terminals on the connector came off (Tears)." – Fumitaka Nakajima.

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RURI (2002) by Fumitaka Nakajima (中島 史敬 AKA "Mr N"), Japan. Ruri came 18th at the 2002 All Japan Micromouse competition with a time of 2 minutes 27.61 seconds, also winning the Namco award.

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Mouse 2001 (2001) by Fumitaka Nakajima "Mr N", Japan. "In 2000, I had planned to focus on developing the software for the DC Mouse that I had developed in 2000, but then I heard that some of the students who had participated in the 2000 competition from Nagoya University College of Education still wanted to participate in the competition even after they graduated, so I thought I would make a target-oriented kit. … However, I was supposed to make a standard kit, but the sensor board was made of surface mount components except for the sensor and connector, and the chip LED was only 1.6mm x 0.8mm in size. Because of this stupid mistake, it was no longer something that could be distributed to the general public, and I ended up having to mount the components myself on all five of the units that were released (tears)." – Fumitaka Nakajima.

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Mouse 2000 (2000) by Fumitaka Nakajima "Mr N", Japan. "The CPU board was actually given to me by Kato Systems (now Boss Corporation) in about 1995, when it was tested but left unused. I bought the parts, but it became too much of a pain to check if it worked, so it just sat on the shelf under my desk (sorry). So, to be exact, only the chassis part is a 2000 model mouse. By the way, the reason I wanted to buy this was because I was inspired by Naga-san's micromouse homepage, and decided to buy a mouse for the first time in a long time. While I was surfing the net for various related pages (an obsolete term), I found out that Minimo had released a DC motor with a built-in encoder, the M1524SR IE2-512. If I hadn't got this motor, I probably wouldn't have bought it." – Fumitaka Nakajima.

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Type-C 2000 R (2000) by Fumitaka Nakajima "Mr N", Japan. Type-C 2000 R came 21st in the qualifying rounds of the 2000 All Japan Micromouse Competition. "This mouse was supposed to be retired as it was, but since it was judged that the 2000 type mouse would not be able to be used in time for the competition, it was decided to use it in the 2000 competition in a hurry. As it was not interesting as it was, the motor drive was changed from EASY DRIVE to a board using the TL494 PWM controller, and a rear wing sensor was attached like the 'two-in-one' of Nagoya Academy, and it was upgraded so that the angle and distance during slamming would be compensated for, perfect slamming would be possible. I was planning to do it, but I made a bug in the program because I was using a wall that wasn't in line with the rules, and the run at the tournament didn't go well. So that's a lesson learned." – Fumitaka Nakajima.

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Type-C (1994) by Fumitaka Nakajima "Mr N", Japan. "I helped develop the AV25 version of the Super Mappy kit at Catalog Systems. However, it was never released and only two prototypes remain, making it a legendary Super Mappy kit. So in 1994, I was able to enter the competition with a mouse named Type-C instead of the Super Mappy kit with EasyDrive I had been using up until then, but it seems that the MAX692 that was regulating power to the mouse blew up right before the first race, so I was forced to retire without being able to move a single step (tears). This shock was the trigger that made me decide to retire from mouse competitions. The truth is, university has been busy." – Fumitaka Nakajima.