So yep, here's an update. Before I started this thread, we already bought some stuff to test out the suction. We first got the vacuum pumps off sparkfun:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10398 and we tested them without anything. They felt weak and we lost hope so I started this thread to look for alternatives. Today, we got our hands on the suction cups and we decided to try it for fun, here was our setup
vacuum pump, 12v, some tubing and piab pigrip suction cups.
these were the piab suction cups
and when we tested them...
they worked really well! There are few small things such as not sucking the cones when the cups are placed on the part of the surface with ridges, but we can get by it! Thank for all your help