[cromulent]

I remember a write-up of this competition around the same time, a year or two earlier perhaps, in Popular Mechanics or some such magazine. From memory there were two main strategies: simple brute-force wall-followers and maze-mappers. The only bot I can remember was named Harvey Wallbanger.

Edit: 1980, found it.

http://davidbuckley.net/RS/mmouse/images/PM80p17article1268....