Originally Posted by onenerdyguy (Post 1523482)

So, we've redesigned a little bit to change over to the Intake. Is this something what people were talking about?

Or would we want to have like a ramp to help feed the ball instead of the dual roller system?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3S...ew?usp=sharing

Originally Posted by Joe G. (Post 1523496)

Both a top/bottom roller design, and a top roller+ramp design are viable solutions. We actually had a surprising level of success with side rollers as well -- take a look at Greenhorns Ri3D for an example of this.

Whatever you go with, prototype it! Make sure that your proposed geometry actually engages with the ball the way you expect it to. A little testing goes a long way.

Originally Posted by onenerdyguy (Post 1523394)

Our team is designing a support robot, whose goal is to grab balls, traverse the defenses, and bring the ball to team mates who shoot. As such, we're designing for speed, low to the ground, and the ability to handle defenses. We're also going to try to hang.

The current plans are as such:

Low body using 6WD tank drive on Pneumatic wheels.

Ball-capture will be a pair of 'pincers' located on the front of the bot, which will actuate out and in to grab the balls with a largish half/dome shape. Once captured, it will actuate back a bit to lift the ball up to avoid contacting the ground will traversing. While not in use, these pincers will fold back over the main bot body for storage and to make sure they don't get jammed up on things.

Primary manipulator for the gate/sally port/draw bridge is a 'tail' . This tail will be driven by a chain drive and mounted on rods that span the length of our bot, allowing it to travel back and forth. This should allow us to, for example, hold the gate up and drive under neath it, keeping the 'tail' steady while our chassis goes under. Same idea for the sally port, and will allow us to lift our chassis up faster too we're hoping.

A very rough cad, completely not to scale, is here. Our team has had no cad experience, so they're doing all their work in TinkerCad right now while we get a hang of Solidworks. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3...3E5NlZwZmJlM00

Any and all feedback would be fantastic. The team is excited, but as you can guess, we're still learning tons!

Originally Posted by onenerdyguy (Post 1523548)

That's fantastic. I really like your articulating intake, it gives us some ideas.

Originally Posted by onenerdyguy (Post 1523559)

I'm beginning to see that. But, as we sit down as a team again, maybe they're up to changing their game plan a bit!