How do you grab the ball?

[Tyler_Kaplan]

I hope everyone has had a good build so far, and I wish all of the teams good luck as we finish out with the last week. But as we start to focus a lot of energy on driver training, as coach I'd like to get a better idea of how most robots will be grabbing/picking up the ball. I've seen a lot of teams who use a horizontal bar with wheels on top of it, and the only problem I see with this is that it will be a challenge to corral the ball if it is bouncing a lot. So what kind of mechanism are your teams using? Thanks and good luck!

[RohitD]

We're currently running the above mentioned horizontal bar with wheels. Regarding the bouncing, we tested that along with the amount of time it took a ball to stop bouncing and effectively start rolling. We weren't having any huge issues with intake.

[Solive]

We built a prototype like you described. It worked pretty well. We also built "El Toro". After testing both we prefer El Toro but both will work. Try experimenting with different wheels. Softer rubber will be better.

[Oblarg]

Overhead PVC roller covered with TheraWrap, driven by a RS550 on a 26:1 gearbox.

Works like a charm.

[dradel]

With our hands......

[Dr.Gusta]

We use a 1114 2008 style claw.

['lil robo-girl]

We have what boils down to a handheld vacuum cleaner attached to a huge suction cup on a metal arm. We added a stronger motor to the vacuum so that it can pick up the ball, which it takes a second or so to do. The biggest problem is that the ball has to be pretty exactly lined up for the seal to form, but there's enough flex room for it to mostly line itself up.

[JesseK]

We have a horizontal roller intake. While it is horizontal, it isn't like any intake debuted on a robot (Ri3D or otherwise) thus far.