News Release

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May 6, 2005

Boise State Engineering Students Place Seventh Out Of 20 Teams In 'MicroMouse' Regional Competition
 

A team of Boise State University engineering students placed seventh out of 20 teams in a MicroMouse regional competition in Santa Clara, Calif., presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

A MicroMouse is a self-contained “smart” device that can navigate its way through a 16-cell by 16- cell maze. Through the use of programming, this little device must start at one corner of the maze and find its way to the center in the shortest time without human assistance.

Team members Chris Hale, Charles Scott, James Steele and Tyler Hansen developed their MicroMouse as a term project in an Embedded Systems course taught by Boise State engineering professor Scott Smith. Two members of the team, Hale and Scott, traveled to California to compete in the IEEE’s Central Western States competition.

Teams from the University of California-Davis took first and third place and the University of Hawaii, which sent seven teams, took second. This the first time that Boise State students have competed in the regional competition — and to come out with a seventh out of 20 is impressive, said Elisa Barney Smith, associate chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

“The BSU team now has lots of new ideas from seeing the robotic mice that have evolved through many years experience at these other universities,” Barney Smith said. “They hope to develop a better mouse next year and to motivate several other student groups at Boise State into developing other mice.”
 

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Contact: Elisa Barney Smith, Engineering, (208) 426-2214, ebarneysmith@boisestate.edu

Media Contact: Janelle Brown, communications and marketing, (208) 426-1790, jbrown2@boisestate.edu

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Last reviewed on Thursday, December 22, 2005