[Billfred]

I'm not familiar with any sort of autonomous-type stuff for 2002. I was of the understanding that autonomous mode didn't start until 2003. (It was before my time.)

If I remember my reading correctly, there was retro-reflective tape on the 2003 HP bins, which the robots could spot and then act accordingly. The only problem was that autonomous wound up being let's-see-who-can-get-to-the-ramp-first. Not so much a sensor issue as a game design issue.

Infrared had one light side nobody realized until afterwards (I recall it being said by cbolin of 342): if you got close, it worked much better. All you had to do was get in the neighborhood (the memory is saying five feet or so) before actually caring about the sensors.

Now, my one real gripe with the CMUcam (aside from the technical difficulties that everyone seemed to get) is that it seemed to kill the visual liveliness of the field. The 2003 and 2004 fields had stuff on them, big things that made the fields look distinctive...and I just didn't feel that from the Triple Play field.