[Chris is me]

My apologies for the hubris I must have to say that a feature of my team's robot might be among "the best" at anything... but I really think a claw intake with some mechanism to pick up balls from the side is the most effective game piece manipulator this year.

Roller bar intakes ("16-style", seen on nearly every low catapult) are by no means bad, but many of them have limitations in how they can pick up balls. Lots of these intakes can hit a ball away from them if the intake is spun into the ball. Some of these have trouble with ejecting a ball. Almost all of them have some kind of "free" state between the ball entering the robot and seating on the catapult, leaving a little potential for dropping the ball. All of these disadvantages can be designed around to the point where they are extremely effective, though.

Claw intakes (as in, at least a top roller, "1114 style") have some unique inherent advantages regardless of design, particularly claws that articulate open / closed. A proper top roller claw intake will always contact the ball with a moving part first regardless of angle of entry. A top roller claw is unless articulated open always in contact with the ball for ejection. Articulating the claw allows for a second method to dislodge the ball from the robot in case of failure.

For a top roller claw to be effective, it needs some method of centering a ball. Many different ways to do this. Teams like 971 and 118 use the geometry of their claw structure to force the ball into the center of the claw as it enters. Other teams like 195 built a literal "CD7" - a set of side rollers added on to bring the ball in. Still others, like 2590, used mecanum wheels on the claw to center the ball and intake it from the side. This method also seems to do better with picking up balls from directly to the side of the claw, which makes sense.

In my opinion, 2791 had one of the best intakes at our two events with a combination of good claw geometry, an articulated top roller, and mecanum wheels. At Tech Valley our intake was very solid. At Finger Lakes it was almost as good, but our shooter modification made it a bit more prone to dropping the ball. I believe 2590 / 971 / others are a fair bit better, and I'd love to see them in person.

Pinch claws can be good this year and as a concept are underrated, but I really just see no advantage to them at all. A roller claw can achieve the same grip strength if spring loaded / articulated. To be blunt, I have not seen a Toro intake in person that is as effective as a top roller claw or a roller bar intake.