[~Cory~]

1. A Cree LED
2. A mentor received it as a promotion. Similar LEDs can be bought from Mouser.
3. Instrumental in our success. The ability for the driver to keep his/her eyes on the robot at all times is priceless. While the light doesn't serve as a substitute for vision targeting through a camera or set points on an encoder, it provides a relative feedback system. Our drivers would use it as confirmation that the robot was in the place that we set the setpoints for. The coach can then keep tabs on the driver station to make sure everything is functioning. The idea here is like a laser sight on a gun to get a general idea of where you are pointing. The aiming through the "scope" of the gun was controlled by software.

The LED was connected to a limit switch on the robot and only turned on during aiming. The idea was to save battery and not annoy other drivers or the refs.

-edit-

We also put a reflecting tube around it to center the beam.