[Kevin Sevcik]

Okay, so I'll toss in my speculation. I think this is in fact going on the robot. I don't think they'd send it out for teams to play around with just to put it on the field. Sending out a field element like this makes no sense, first, teams wouldn't need it to play with. A field item would be VERY specifically wired, configured, and used. You didn't need to play with the cold cathodes for the light target, you just wired them up like FIRST said. On the other hand, sending out the CMUCams early would've been highly useful. Second, putting a receiver like this on the field then assumes that teams are going to have some sort of transmitter on their robot. Which they don't have to play with and figure out.

Also, I am firmly convinced that FIRST is not so fiscally irresponsible as to design, burn, and build 1500 of these and then express them to teams around the world for the sake of a red herring and to give Dave a chance to sit at his computer going "MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH!!!!!"

So, I am left to conclude that this goes on the robot to tell the state of something on the field in autonomous mode. I honestly have no idea what this might be, but consider ho interesting AIM high would have been if there were four square goals to hit with a target light in the middle. But a random goal was actually worth double points and you could only tell by using the IR receiver. So yeah, I don't know exactly what's going on in the demented minds of our GDC, but I'm sure they could come up with a way to make this useful to put on the robot.