[10intheCrunch]

In keeping with simplicity:

Why not just use dead reckoning? In general we have observed that the more complicated an auto mode gets, the less accurate it gets, and that extends just as much to sensor using robots. With some thought you can set up a really easy to maintain and tinkerable state machine to adjust motor values, and from there its just some testing to get it to work right...

A lot of people stopped by our pit in Sacramento and commented about how simple our idea for knocking the ball off is (a fiberglass whip on a spring, lowered by a pneumatic cylinder), and it kinda surprised me. Simple mechanism means a simple program, and that's why we were so successful in hitting off the ball (until day 2 when one of the motor transmissions got changed...that's the downside of sensorless automodes =\ ).