IR Distance Scanner vs. AVR Tiny13 - TechRanch (2-year leader in the Regolith Excavation Challenge, running new blog software) - Here are some excerpts; see the post for the details:
At the recent NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge, one of the other teams used a LASER rangefinder on their robot to map the sandbox and obstacles. ... I thought that there might be a cheap way to make some sort of crude rangefinder using some Sharp IR distance sensors and a hobby servo… If anyone cares, I will post more details about the project. I might end up making some PC boards, and I could potentially sell bare boards and/or kits if there is enough interest…
Here's a collection of photos from the 2008 winner.