Hi,
As part of promotion of our FIRST Robotics team at our school, we are trying to build a basketball playing robot. Our goal is to have it play a game of horse against a member of the basketball team.
The idea is to build a consistent shooter, constantly measure the distance to the hoop, and use parametric equations to place the ball in the hoop.
As the first step, we need to be able to track distance to the hoop. Only horizontal distance is needed, as vertical distance is always known. So far we've had a couple ideas:
1) A trackball, like inside an old mouse, that measures distance traveled. It can be calibrated before playing to directly underneath the hoop, and always track its position relative to the "origin."
2) A system with a transmitter/receiver underneath the hoop, and a transmitter/receiver on the robot. The distance between the two halves could then be calculated...somehow.
We are interested in help with the second option. We don't know whether it would use radio waves, optical sensors, sound, or something we haven't thought of.
The system needs to be accurate to within an inch, and have a range of around 50 feet, in order to cover half a basketball court.
Can anybody help? It would be greatly appreciated.
As part of promotion of our FIRST Robotics team at our school, we are trying to build a basketball playing robot. Our goal is to have it play a game of horse against a member of the basketball team.
The idea is to build a consistent shooter, constantly measure the distance to the hoop, and use parametric equations to place the ball in the hoop.
As the first step, we need to be able to track distance to the hoop. Only horizontal distance is needed, as vertical distance is always known. So far we've had a couple ideas:
1) A trackball, like inside an old mouse, that measures distance traveled. It can be calibrated before playing to directly underneath the hoop, and always track its position relative to the "origin."
2) A system with a transmitter/receiver underneath the hoop, and a transmitter/receiver on the robot. The distance between the two halves could then be calculated...somehow.
We are interested in help with the second option. We don't know whether it would use radio waves, optical sensors, sound, or something we haven't thought of.
The system needs to be accurate to within an inch, and have a range of around 50 feet, in order to cover half a basketball court.
Can anybody help? It would be greatly appreciated.