Autonomous navigation is an important feature in robotics as it provides mobile robot with the ability to traverse from one point to another point while avoiding any obstacles that lie within its path. One of the challenges is to reduce the complexity of the development of programs that can provide the pertaining artificial intelligence. The objective of this paper is to describe the implementation of autonomous navigation through the use of event-driven programming technique which was based on finite state machines (FSM). By using FSM to describe the behaviour of a navigating mobile robot, an equivalent algorithm can be developed. The algorithm can be relatively easy translated to a suitable program with event-driven programming technique. Two types of navigation, maze navigation and grid following; were implemented by persons with minimum to intermediate programming skill; exhibiting the flexibility and ease of implementation of this technique. © 2012 IEEE.