netting material
 

I am wondering what material people are using to hold in balls if they are at all. Also where I can find the material. We have tried a couple things and I don't particularly like any of them.

Re: netting material
 

How about that stuff that they put at construction sites...you know, that orange safety net? The material is thick enough that screws won't pull out but it is kind of bulky and heavy.

Re: netting material
 

Titan Robotics (492) is using the plastic wrap you put around the crate. Cheap, light, and easily replaced...

We used 1/16" Lexan.

Re: netting material
 

Our team is using a combination of 1/16th and 1/8th inch Lexan with the corrugated plastic material that is used in stuff like real estate and "For Sale" signs. If you have two layers of it that are going in perpendicular directions, it is fairly strong.

Re: netting material
 

177 is using .020" polycarbonate sheet available from McMaster and many other fine retailers. We have also used plastic window screen in the past.
Pete

Re: netting material
 

Uhm... Rick? That was our sad replacement because some one dropped the ball in purchasing! We have replaced our suran-rap with real stuff!

Also, the stuff they use on construction sites are nice, but VERY heavy.

Attached is the pic of our NEW hopper/backboard material.

Re: netting material
 

I'm sorry to hear that. I was looking forward to you kicking big robot butt with a hopper covered in plastic fish wrap. Looking forward to seeing you in Portland...

Re: netting material
 

Screen door material. We use the pet proof stuff (it's coated in plastic).

Re: netting material
 

Hehe, but check it out! We gave Pengu (our penguin mascot) a scateboard! There is no way we could loose now!

Re: netting material
 

1/16" Lexan cheezed up with lots of holes and held together with tiny aluminum angles and rivets.

Re: netting material
 

team 1002 had some really cool spandex net and were thinking of using that. Mainly because we can get it in pink.

Re: netting material
 

I'm pretty sure we used Deer Netting from Lowes, each square the netting has is about 1" square, its cheap, and available easily. But do keep in mind we didn't use it to hold balls, just to protect balls from getting into our robot in inappropriate places.

Just as a reconmendation though, if you can afford the weight I'd reconmend going with a solid polycarbonate like lexan. You don't want your nets to absorb the energy from the gravity and cause bridging, ideally you want the balls to bounce off the material and move as far down as possible, as a team that has tested it this year and used netting to hold balls in the past (04) we experinced a lot of jamming using nets. Lexan is harder so balls bounce off of it and move around more, netting is flexible and absorbs a lot of energy which leads to bridging and jamming. And even if you have something to break the jams, you've still lost time.

Re: netting material
 

Team 647 is using Winter Camouflage netting for its hopper. It is really strong stuff we had six team members trying to rip it at the same time and the netting did not rip. We got it from an army surplus store. (We live near Ft. Hood, there are a lot of army surplus stores around). You can see it here.

Re: netting material
 

we would use lexan but we are at 119ish pounds right now.