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Not to discourage you or anything, but has anyone actually tried this and gotten it to work?

It's been done repeatedly for many years on problems much more difficult than this year's FIRST challenge. (Ask Dean Kamen about something called a "Segway"). You have a bridge that will balance if the CG is located within about a 6" band between the hinges.

I feel the problem may be more complicated than just using PID and human control will always be better.

You may want to do a little more research. The only thing the current problem requires is a quick reaction time. Human reactions will never come close to machine reactions - judgement is a different subject!

Try something like either of these under human control if you think you can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI06lujiD7E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH4EZ1GCrK0