Our team decided day one we would need as much time as possible to get a "competitive" intake prototyped, put into cad and fabricated. We set a small group of students who wanted to work on the intake aside from the beginning of the build season and gave them the task. We also realized our resources were already going to be spread thin so we had the mentality of if we can get it done then we will use it but we focused more on shooting and climbing. Our week one regional came around (Hub City) and we had lots of trouble getting our machine debugged mechanically and with software. We were playing a match against 1986 Titanium and when they hail a deadly fire storm of 7 disc above your head during autonomous within the first 15 seconds we soon realized how demoralizing it was and how it gave them a psychological advantage let alone a big point difference. When we came back home we definitely wanted to get the intake done. We got it working well and worked out some kinks before the Dallas regional. Our biggest problem was getting the intake to not "chatter" while driving and picking up two frisbees side by side and funneling them in without getting jammed. Got a centerline 5 disc working from both sides of the pyramid, a 7 disc auto from middle and a 5 disc middle working. (Enough of my story)
Our intake is lowered while our "shooter"is lowering also. We use pneumatics to get the robot to lower the intake by retracting the piston. It was really reliable and didn't have much trouble with it. We use a banebot motor (Don't know what specific model) to drive one of the rollers and the other roller is driven my the polyurethane belting connecting the two rollers.
Picture of the robot/intake:
http://t.co/fUX4fkhyEj
Here is video of the testing phases before worlds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkyqsW11xFg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnNroKsyFaU
Here it is in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j9ov03mOyA