I deeply admire my friend for his sheer determination and patience to fix his micromouse. The only antique top-sensing micromouse left in the arsenal, it has already being sent for repairs many times, but it still doesn't work properly, especially the motors. The place to repair the mouse is very far and ulu, so my friend had to DIY.

Since a month ago (he started doing his mouse way earlier than me) he has been permuting the 10 plus motors, chips, circuit boards, sensor boards, frames etc which he dug out from the cupboard, removing the circuit boards, turning the screws, removing the tires, the frames, changing the motors, then putting everything back together again, only to see the mouse crashing again.

On top of that, he has to endure the other 2 teams using the new-er (and the new-est) side-sensing mice running through the diagonals and overcoming long straights without any problem, plus the occasional tease. Thankfully he's a cheerful guy.

He is always the first to reach the lab and the last (at least later than me) to leave the lab.

He was (finally?) on the verge of giving up today, until i sympathise with him and decided to give him a helping hand.

[ I had thought of letting him take my mouse and I take over his mouse, since I have used a side-sensing mouse before and they hadn't, but my selfishness to hold on to my working mouse and unwillingness to use a half-spoilt mouse overcame my generosity. Argh. =( ]

Still, the problem is not quite fixed, for I'm no hardware expert, so he and his teammate are going down to AI tomorrow. Seriously I hope that will be the last time we have anything to do with them (at least for my batch).

I am totally impressed by his endurance to continue and not giving up, despite all these challenges. I don't think I would have survived for so long if I were him. I felt rather sorry for him and i myself feel quite bad, because I thought I could have done much more to help him.

Haix.