The APEC conference hosted its 35th annual micromouse contest on Monday February 26th in Long Beach California.
There was a good mix of contestants from the USA, UK and Japan with a surprise last-minute entry creating quite a stir with its excellent showing.
The maze looked like this:
As we have come to expect, there were two principal routes with contestants able to demonstrate their preference for straights or diagonals. The diagonal route was a little shorter but slighty more risky. Notably, both routes were more than 18m long which is quite a lot for the classic micromouse contest.
Altogether, there were 15 entries and you can read all about them in the programme:
The score at APEC is a combination of the total maze time, the run time and any penalty from having to touch the mouse. The final ranking was like this:
| Name | Rank | Best Score (s) |
| Decimus 5A | 1 | 10.735 |
| Spira | 2 | 17.304 |
| Que | 3 | 17.7 |
| Zeetah VI | 4 | 17.824 |
| Mazerunner32 | 5 | 19.787 |
| HAL900 | 6 | 24.138 |
| Thunder | 7 | 32.442 |
| MovEye | 8 | 43.238 |
| Mr Fusion | 9 | 55.64 |
| Mercury | 10 | 64.51 |
| Pi:Co Classic 3 | 11 | 84.487 |
| uMouse | – | R |
| Major 1 | – | R |
| Gus | – | R |
| Bigger Chunky | – | R |
There is also a prize for the best single run from start to goal. Here is the ranking for that:
| Name | Rank | Best Run (s) |
| Decimus 5A | 1 | 6.999 |
| Que | 2 | 8.981 |
| Spira | 3 | 9.119 |
| Zeetah VI | 4 | 11.785 |
| Mazerunner32 | 5 | 13.591 |
| HAL900 | 6 | 17.049 |
| MovEye | 7 | 30.94 |
| Thunder | 8 | 32.442 |
| Mr Fusion | 9 | 55.64 |
| Mercury | 10 | 55.779 |
| Pi:Co Classic 3 | 11 | 73.479 |
| Bigger Chunky | – | R |
| Gus | – | R |
| Major 1 | – | R |
| uMouse | – | R |
Thank you to David Otten and APEC for making all this possible.