I've decided to create a robot for my senior project, it's a design is based off of the xkcd comic, "new pet" as seen here: [http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/new_pet.png]
I'm making a few changes to the original design (laptop replaced with microcontroller, webcam replaced with rangefinder, and a few more). Now, I've reached a problem that involves the rangefinder. The magnets might affect the servos (i'm not sure, i've never tried it out), and if they do I won't be able to mount it on top of the ball without possible malfunctioning. So I plan to mount the rangefinders (I'll mount two inside for more accuracy) inside of the glass/plastic ball. This will be more aesthetic as well as less hazardous.
My main question is, are the rangefinders going to be affected by the glass/plastic?
If they are, they would detect the ball and imagine it to be very far away from what I've read on the acroname website. If this occurs then the rangefinder would follow the ball indefinitely, right? Would it detect other objects if it detects the ball? If so, I believe it would follow those since it would detect them to be closer, is this true?