I was wondering how the guys program their robots in the micromouse competition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bproY7G2t4o
It was obvious that they don't use the "always go left" method. After looking around a little bit, it became apparent that the competitors keep their algorithms on the hush. But I did find that the base for most their methods is the Flood Fill method. Here is a paper that describes it pretty well.
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~edam/Reports/2001/DWillardson.pdf
UPDATED:
I just ran across a video that describes this process as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmiCkcdw6E4