This is more of what I was looking at if I chose to use it at all. find the cross with line sensors and light sensors and then do fine adjustments on angle using the light against the floor tile. you could maybe even cast a vertical line shadow in the center of the beam for a center calibration to go off of. from the cross, the power should always be the same, and if you are angled right using the light, you should be able to hit the high goal every time.
still, the vex light may not be bright enough, and the focus might not be narrow enough to work.
As far as i know it would be. i posted a question on the product page. i’d be surprised if it was thicker than .070". Ill add this question to my polycarbonate heating question in the official.
i guess it all depends on how the Fresnel lens was made, it very well could have been “chemically treated, melted or cast”
It was probably cast. And, besides, that small of a lens probably won’t help much. Off-the-shelf Fresnel lenses are usually set up to collect light from a larger spread-out source and focus it upon a small area, like a sensor, or like a solar “furnace”. I think the best you could hope for in running the Fresnel in “reverse” is to project a large image of your LED upon the net, but I’m guessing it would barely be visible even in normal lighting, never mind tournament lighting. With an off-the-shelf Fresnel, I don’t think you’re ever going to convert an LED into a bright point source 12 feet away. But I’m not an expert on this, so tinker with it and let us know what you learn.
