Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me
disclaimer: i'm not 1114, i just played with intakes for six weeks
The Banebot polyurethane rubber seems like a very different material than the blue McMaster wheels. The consistency is closer to that of a pencil eraser than of a smooth rubber like the blue McMaster wheels, and the BB wheels will start to fail before they break traction with a game piece. The McMaster wheels are more durable so they'll slip before they fail, and they also seem subjectively a bit less sticky.
Durometer isn't an absolute measure of traction by any means. You can get the McMaster wheels in a durometer lower than the orange Banebot wheels. So I would not take a durometer number as gospel in terms of tractive force applied to a game piece - especially if you are comparing two different rubbers.
Another variable this year is that the amount of compliance your intake had affected what wheels worked optimally. 1114's intake was mostly rigid with a small degree of compliance in the outermost wheels for picking up cans. More compliant intakes seemed to prefer the blue McMaster or even the harder blue BaneBot wheels over the orange BaneBots (I was really surprised to see that the harder BB wheel would grip a tote better...). Intake design this year was definitely not something you could afford to guess on without prototyping extensively.
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For comparison we found our custom 30A durometer urethane wheels to have about the same or slightly better traction than orange banebot wheels. The BB wheels are aerated rubber not urethane.