Surprisingly enough, if you look here:
http://www-me.mit.edu/CourseListings/CourseListings.htm
You'll see that 2.973 is actually an independent study class at MIT.
http://www.pooftoys.com/toys/catalog...=catv&catid=42
The socerballs are multi-colored while the vollyballs are not....
A 24" DIA rim is quite generous, especially with 7 1/2" DIA balls.
4' tall goals = 48 inches. (7.5" Ball DIA) * (7 point max) is greater than 48 inches... so you would need to squish them in to get all of the points.
Just some things to think about.
Somebody at the very least spent a descent amount of time on this. It's been rumored that the changed to 24 Volts was coming, as well at the metal-carpet interaction.
It's also been rumored that there's going to be changes in the controller controlers anyway, so the 24 volt switch isn't nearly as dramatic as all you electrical guys are making it seem. If they are switching to 24 volts, they'll be making that hardware switch anyway.
It wouldn't be too hard to track the robots if you had 4 judges (we had 3 in the past?).
Very very interesting post.