Quote:
Originally Posted by Slothbron
So my team is think about a conveyor belt system to pick up the game balls with. We are wondering what would be the best material to use for the belt. Or if it should be a series of smaller bands.
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A belt is very, very difficult to get to work well. It has a tendency to "walk" to the side. In professional belting, they do two things to prevent this - First, the framing and rollers are kept perfectly square, and second, the roller is made angled, so the center has a larger diameter than the sides. This way, a correctly made belt will "walk" towards the center, instead of the sides.
On a robot, keeping everything perfectly square is very difficult - virtually impossible, when you consider the hits and movements you get on a robot.
So, to get around that, a lot of teams use the "polycord" stuff. The setup is almost exactly like a normal conveyor belt. You use normal straight rollers, have multiple cords, and have to have some way to keep them straight - groves in the roller might work, or a "comb" stuck between the cords.