plunger gripper and spear
 

Wow. I pushed a plunger today onto a big yellow ball. It really sticks well. I was thinking that if you drilled a hole in the handle place and inserted a giant syringe type of device and attached this to an actuater you could get a fast quick ball grabber. I posted my question on the first Q and A to see if this might violate some pnuematics rule. If not its a pretty cool thing. The other cool thing is that it doubles as a pretty cool end effector.... I call it the plunger spear that can be used for stabbing at various balls that populate the higher levels of the playing field. :yikes:

Re: plunger gripper and spear
 

Charlie,
The only vacuum you can use on the robot is one produced by a pnuematic cylinder. There is not a lot of volume in one of those so it makes it difficult to achieve with evacuating the volume of a plunger. Everyone should keep in mind that the balls are not going to be cleaned after every match or weekend. They will pick up dirt and other foreign objects from the playing field and the surface will become damaged (scratched) with time.

Re: plunger gripper and spear
 

Good point there concerning the dirt. We inflated our ball in our school's gym, and by the time we got it upstairs from rolling or bouncing, the thing was covered with dirt, and would not have stuck to a suction cup. Add in fibers from the carpeting, and that makes for some messed up surfaces for suction, I wouldn't bet on it working properly.