Hi there,
I'm new to this forum. I recently started playing tennis and feel it's really a waste of time to pick tennis balls after practice (it also hurt my back...). I'm thinking to start a side project and build a robot that can navigate on the outdoor tennis court and collect the tennis balls. I have a software engineering background but little in Arduino. Any advice on where to start? Thanks!
Google "Tennis ball collector arduino" to see what others have done.
Simpler and easier to buy one of those ball pickers. Make one by cutting an X in the bottom of a plastic pail and put a handle on it so you can drop it over a ball and pick it up without stooping. You can pick up a bunch before having to empty the bucket.
Vectoring a motorized cart to a target isn't hard. Identifying targets and scanning is hard. Easiest way would be like a motorized remote control bucket loader. You can't scoop a ball, it wants to roll away, so you have to have some sort of grabber (maybe like a Roomba with just a couple of inward turning spinners.)
Might be more cost effective to pay a kid $5 to shag balls! LOL
and an Arduino starter kit with a build order for a ball picker as a gift. 
This is the best solution yet, but the balls get all slobbery! LOL
Or worse....
Ha-ha-ha-ha aww. Fun-knee!
We had a bulldog. SOB (literally) bit me on the ass while I was sleeping!
There are multiple aspects to it - driving around, picking up balls and navigating. Maybe there could be some robot vision stuff too to locate balls.
Navigation and ensuring full coverage of the court is probably one of the harder bits. I'd be inclined to start with something radio controlled that you steer yourself.
Look at the vehicles they use on a golf driving range to pick up the balls - it might give you clue what the collection mechanism should look like.
Possibly useful: https://pixycam.com
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