Nanomouse

Nanomouse is a small programmable educational robot designed for an outreach project called CAPP Day. Its purpose is to introduce highschool students to the world and concepts of Engineering by example and hands-on 'programming'.

The device was built within a budget of $20/unit and 125 of them were hand-assembled by Society members and fellow student volunteers. A nanomouse can be programmed to execute any number of the following instructions:

A nanomouse 'program' can be used to instruct the robot to drive in a certain pattern, make its way past obstacles, crash into targets, etc. Matt developed the curriculum for CAPP Day, introducing the students to the nanomouse and allowing teaching them to program it.

The device may be programmed from a PC via a serial port or by itself through a set of onboard switches and buttons. Suraj developed the 'nanomouse language' and compiler, along with a Linux Live CD that provides a programming environment, tutorial, and example 'programs'.

The nanomouse embedded code, written by Andrey, 'executes' the user's programs by controlling the robot's motors and LEDs. It also interfaces with the serial port for PC-based programming and the switches and buttons for stand-alone programming. User programs are saved in EEPROM and retained between power cycles. Andrey's nanomouse page has more details about the embedded code.

The nanomouse is built using through-hole components on a two-layer PCB. Andrey built the initial prototypes and created the schematic and Brant Jameson created the PCB layout. John and Erik chose and tested motors and an H-bridge for the nanomouse and tuned the motor control code to ensure that the device performed correctly. They also designed the robot's plexiglass wheels, created with a laser cutter.