[JesseK]

Last night we experimented with conveyor belts a bit. We'll probably use one of two ways to do it, with adjustments made later:

1.) Surgical tubing
2.) Rubber mesh used in VEX, in conjuntion with solid rubber hose that will be sewn to it, laying flat against the mesh but perpendicular to the way the ball moves. The layout is similar to a rock/gravel conveyor, but everything's allowed to flex in order to form to the ball for better grip.

One thing we haven't nailed down yet -- has anyone figured out an effective compression on the balls so that there's minimal slip yet it doesn't deform the ball too much? We're thinking about spacing our conveyors 8" apart so the ball exerts some force back on the belts for traction, and then the ball will sort of 'pop' out at the top...but we have yet to test that.