the ball

have been doing more research on the new ball.
the rules do not allow the ball that is actually in use to be used:

2.2. Ball Suppliers.
2.2.1. The official balls for all RCJA tournaments will be:
IR Roboball MK2 made by Wiltronics http://www.wiltronics.com.au/catalogue/shop.php?cid=339
EK RoboSoccer RCJ-05 ball available from Modern Teaching Aids (http://www.teaching.com.au/lego_robocup.asp )

the ball in use is the RCJ-05 ball made by EK in japan ( http://www.elekit.co.jp/material/english_product_html/RCJ-05.php?page=2&ssi=2,3,19 )
this ball uses a step wave at 40 Hz. it's peak wavelength is 940nm.

this means to find it with a regular light sensor you would need to poll the sensor twice with a 0.040sec delay between the polling code as follows:

IF port_1 > 35:
run ball_found_module
ELSE:
WAIT 0.040 sec
IF port_1 >35:
run ball_found_program
ENDIF
ENDIF