[phrontist]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Thinking about this, yes optical mice are cool but what came before them? Ball mice! It may not be practical for all games (like climbing a step) but for a game like 2002's Zone Zeal, maybe you could just stick a ball and a couple wheels under the robot. Think Technokats 2003 Ball robot, but maybe 1/4-1/3 the size and instead of motors powering the little wheels there would be shaft encoders hooked to the little wheels. Yeah, that would work, at least on a flat field. Make a cradle in the center of your robot and put a ball in there with two little rollers at 90 degrees from each other contacting the ball at all times.

Max Lobovsky said the exact same thing. But there is one problem with this! Try using a ball mouse with a carpet patch as your mouse pad for an hour and I garuntee your enthusiasm for this idea will be curbed.