Thanks for the information.
For one or two turns you can add up the magnitude and get repeatable results, but when we tried to do it over 15 seconds there was too much drift. One of the programs is set up to drive laterally across the field looking for bins using an IR ranger. When it sees one it turns 90 degrees, drives forward to push it out of the scoring zone, then reverses, turns 90 degress to rejoin the search path. The robot could only make maybe 2 transitions before it drifted so much it was useless.
We had a couple of different programs that used the bearing so it cut down on maintenance by providing the value directly to the robot. It provided some flexibility when they put the robot on the field because they didn't have to get the angle perfect, just put it down square, reset the bearing, and rotate it in place. It will still steer to the correct angle no matter which direction its pointed.
I think it worked well, and they can add the bearing to any program by just plugging in the board. Theres a video on
www.soap108.com of match 91 at Chesapeake that shows the robot slip on the ramp, sense that its off course, correct itself, and hit the stack. We were slow but reliable, like everyone we just needed a little more time.