How to track revolution of DC motor? I am currently trying to build a line follower robot that is designed to solve maze. This maze has a loop, thus it needs to know distance it already travelling (or at least I assume so, please let me know otherwise).

I am aware of a rotary encoder motor from Polulu (for example) but it's not available in my country and shipping price is too expensive.

So I need to find way around it. Should I use Stepper motor? Is there any other way? Thanks in advance.
You can Use wheel encoders. You can even make your own wheel encoders with general parts like photoTransistor and lasor or led light. you can make your encoder or print it out in paper. The use little math to calculate the distance. It will give you measurement with good level of precision.

Basic principle:




more information at

wheel Encoder

another encoder