[mtrawls]

To all teams using the IR beacon to knock over the 2x multiplier, I am interested in what algorithms you used to get there, and how they worked. During the build season I myself experimented with several, using the EduBot, of a wide range of complexity ... and as I was about to decide on a very complex, trig-enabled algorithm, one of my mentors suggested I use a simpler approach. It turned out to be quite elegant, really.

I mentioned it before on CD (and was told it would never work!), but here is the basic premise of it: We have three IR sensors housed in a metal casing lined with black corrugated cardboard to reduce internal reflections, and have a small, adjustable vertical slit in each. The sensors are aligned so that one is put facing the right, one the left and the other forward (each housing box can be turned a given angle to adjust just when the sensor "sees" the beacon ... this can be used to hit the other team's ball, just ours or both).

As we put the robot down, we hit a switch to tell it which beacon type to look for. Then, when auto mode starts, the robot drives forward until either the left or right sensor "sees" the beacon, whereat the robot stops, then turns either left or right accordingly until the center sensor "sees" the beacon, at which point we know we are facing the beacon. Here the robot moves its "tusks" and its "arm" to a position so that we can knock down the ball, and then it drives forward for a short burst of time. It is worth noting that this arrangement lined us up with the beacon *every* time, and the only issue was with coordinating the "tusks" and "arm" correctly ... which by the end of the competition, I had worked out rather nicely.

It is a simple, uncomplex algorithm. We disgard the servo setup entirely, and just use three sensors. However, its simplicity makes it work fast and reduces the liklihood of either mechanical or programming failures. I'm interested in finding out how others modified the setup we were given, and to what success.