Our goal was to burst Vinod's bubble.  Pow!
Would the Ovodrain have fared better than the Peon?  Who can tell.  Too late now but maybe in the future...

    Our primary goal was to design a robot that could get two balls quickly and reliably and then prevent our opponent from scoring.  The first part of our objective was accomplished by creating a robot that could first orient itself and score with the ball closest to the trough.  The robot then drove to the rear of the table to collect a second ball by nudging the ball, allowing it to roll through its center, and pushing it into the trough.

     As for preventing our opponent from scoring, we debated how to accomplish this.  Ideas included creating an extendable arm that would shoot out to create a fence that would block the trough from the other robot, tracking the other robot with IR, and building a small car that would drive down the trough and sit over the hole.  In the end, we decided that since our robot could score three points reliably and quickly (at least that part of the mission was accomplished...), we should try to collect more balls and possibly score with them, or at least shove the balls to our opponent's side.  To do this, we tried to use distance sensors to determine if the block was placed near the trough or far from the through and then direct our robot to drive across the table and avoid the block.  If things worked properly, the robot's code directed it to collect the balls (of our color), drive at an angle to the trough on the other side, and stop and block the trough (hopefully in front of the other robot).  If things didn't work--i.e. the distance sensors failed--and the robot hit the obstacle, the robot was designed to make a u-turn and try again...and with luck, avoid the block.