Most successful claw design?

[Brian Ha]

I think the best one was a wide spatula claw. It didnt look like they had rollers. Basically that had a top spatula claw that was pneumatically fired and had a botton hand that had four fingers made of lexan that grabbed the tubes. If you dont know who this is its 2137. Their hand worked very well and effictively. So yeah thought it was cool.

[Owen Meaker]

Our team has a pnumatic grabber, with the addition of an automated grabbing mode. So theoretically we would have the ease of use of a roller claw with the ease of placing of a normal grabber.

However, this is theoretical, and we all know the difference between theory and practice.

[Koko Ed]

We are perfectly happy with our claw design. Even without rollers.

[Chris is me]

Rollers are great, given infinite weight, motors, and support. But that's rarely the case in robotic design.

The advantages of other claws aren't based on competitiveness, but on resources.

[CalTran]

I think clamp claws work well. Our team is great with hitting a tube and grabbing it on the go. Our claw is a bottom plate with a pneumatic clamp at the top. Then we have something akin to a "tooth" to keep the tube in.

I also like how Team 1986, Team Titanium, has their manipulator.

[artdutra04]

I may be biased but narrow roller claws work like a charm. They very quickly acquire tubes, very quickly score tubes, and depending on their implementation can easily hold tubes from "impossible" positions, like the very corner of triangles or squares.