Quote:
Originally Posted by burde1jb
Oh wise members of CD:
Last season we began with a very interesting idea to manipulate the game piece: Vacuums. Specifically Venturi Pump style vacuums. A mentor brought in some very cool equipment which was demonstrated to hold on to the totes and bins very well, but I said no as I did not think they would have been legal.  Please note the picture uses water as the medium, but our devices would have used the pressurized air.
According to the manual R66  , any device which creates a vacuum would not be subject to the pneumatic rules. However, a Venturi pump would utilize the pneumatic system components.
Would such a system have been legal last year? Thoughts! |
Venturi valves are interesting when it comes to the rules - half of the valve is considered pneumatics, while the other half isn't. So as others have mentioned, you would have to run the valve off of a legal pneumatic system, which (probably) couldn't generate enough airflow to create sufficient vacuum to pick up a tote. My team tried them way back in Rack N' Roll, and couldn't quite get it to pick up an inner tube!
When teams want to use a vacuum, most often they'll take something like a shop vacuum apart and replace the internal motor with a legal one. It can create a LOT more suction for you that a venturi valve can with our pneumatics limitations!