Laser Pointer

[EricH]

Originally Posted by akoscielski3

The rule against laser pointers for aligning is for PRE-Match. It was (as far as I know) put in there so that teams weren't going to be using laser pointers and stuff to line up their robot last year for auto.

Actually, not quite. It was put in long before that so that teams wouldn't use laser pointers and stuff that wasn't part of the robot to line up their robot. You could use the stuff all you liked, but it had to be part of the robot.


One of the best alignment devices I've ever seen was 190's "Dean Device" from 2004. It was a laminated piece of paper in the shape of a hand with a finger pointing down. This piece of paper was velcroed to a particular wheel to straddle a line--the starting alignment that year was touching the wall and straddling the line. The robot was narrower than most for other reasons, but that little device worked pretty well for alignment...