Sorry I did thoroughly explain my intent. I have some image processing experience with roborealm ( I have a licensed copy) and I understand how the image capture and edge detection samples work for the shield. I know the atmega 328 isn't the ideal processor for this type of thing but the point of this project is to make it cheap.
The robot would be sitting on the side of the court about 2 feet parallel to the net, pointed towards the other doubles lane. The robot needs to determine where the ball is on demand (push of button), knowing the ball is near the net (at a standstill). All I need is some algorithm to determine a circular shape and eliminate the rest of the area sort of like blob detection, then I would use the sample code that finds the brightest spot in the picture and the rest I can do.
The bright yellow ball seams easily distinguished from a fairly light background.
EDIT: Also, I may be a highschooler, but i'm no noob to this. I have done gps navigation, indoor navigation, FIRST robotics, ethernet robotics, swarm systems, servers, etc...