I’m thinking that a good idea would be to use the camera to track the backboard so that our shooter is always facing it. Then use a laser range finder to calculate the distance as it may be more accurate. Thoughts?
Most of the laser range finders I have found online do not have a serial/analog out, and cannot detect anything within a 5 yard range. I do not know how the plexiglass backing will react to the laser (bounce off or go through). Your best bet it is likely to use the rangefinder in the kit.
I could not find a class 1 laser range finder that could go the distance needed. If you find a laser range finder that is legal for FIRST use that can sense far enough distances, please share.
A range finder would be redundant in this application. If you are already tracking the rectangle then you can extract distance information either by measuring the rectangle size or by calculating the angll between the camera and the rectangle. It was very common to calculate distance based either on the position of a tilt servo that was tracking the target or based on the position of the target relative to the center pixel during the 2006 game. THe majority of teams who tracked successfully used this method.
Laser range finders are really not the best solution here. In my experience they come in 1 of two varieties, either for percise measurement which would not give a long enough range for FRC, or long distance which are typically big, heavy, and expensive. In my experience computer vision is the most reliable way to measure distance in the range required for FRC.