Quote:
Originally Posted by RollinTDollin
Great job!
How well does it work when turning quickly? We found that most types of rollers we prototyped similar to this couldn't effectively keep the ball from flying off when turning quickly (turning slowly was a different story). Were you able to accommodate for fast turning?
|
Thanks! To be honest we haven't tested the system a lot while moving, it retains the ball really well when turning and backing up at not-so-intense speeds, but thats not competition level speeds IMO. We'll test more, and in addition to fine tuning the height of the roller, we're only moving the drivetrain forward when auto-tracking the goal (aka, to turn left, move the right side forward instead of right forward and left back). This should improve our odds of keeping the ball, if only slightly.
The roller is made out of a solid aluminum 3/8" shaft, wrapped with a 1" wide strip of Wedgetop tread, fastened to the shaft with pop rivets. The right half spirals counter clockwise towards the middle and the left half spirals clockwise to wards the middle, which causes the ball to funnel towards the middle.