Homing Beacon for Catching Ball

[DavisDad]

My son had the idea to having a homing beacon a team could lend to alliance partner; something that'd report distance as well as angle. I think sonar sensor/beacons can do this...

[BornaE]

Unfortunately that is illegal in the rules.

1. you cannot have any sort of wireless communication to or within the robot.
2. The beacon would have to be build by team whose robot is it on which is not possible.

[otherguy]

It depends on how you want to use the beacon. If you are just trying to determine the position of your alliance partner, relative to your own robot, you could construct a system which would be within the rules.

You could mount a camera on your robot, and look for a unique feature that you place on another robot. Think of the florescent targets on the 2009 robots. Or train your camera on a unique fiducial marker that you've trained your camera to detect.

If you're trying to send information to an alliance partner (inter-robot communication), I con'at think of a way to legally implement this that would be reliable enough to use in competition.