Is using vision Key this year?

[Mark Pettit]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

If you have a real idea on how to do it, I'd be very interested in hearing it though.

Have you ever been to a competition event? The impossible happens there all the time.
Drop two arms, one on each side (you could drop a hanging tetra off with these also), move the robot to the side wall and turn it so it is facing the opposite side wall, move across the field so that the arms will bump a tetra where it exists. This starts a routine that picks up the tetra and calculates distance, etc to the goal you want to cap and drives there and scores. Since the tetras can only be in two of eight locations, your bot can count its way to the bump and know which position it's in and where the goal is from there. It'd help to have the competition carpet to perfect it and/or be very ready to calibrate to the field carpet on practice day.
Echoing Russel (2 posts above), it's not going to work every time but you can definitely get it consistent enough to be competitive.
Do I need to come up with any more ideas for you?