Suction as a method for possessing balls

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by martin417

The power rating on shop vacs is very misleading.

It's kind of like the power ratings of air compressors. Apparently some marketing genius, in the 1980s, discovered that a motor produces it's peak power when it's starting up the compressor, and had their company base their HP ratings on this number, instead of the HP being used in constant running.

It could be that the vacuums are rated the same way.

Anyways, this looks like an excellent use for a Fisher Price motor--you can run the fan at very high speed and you won't have to worry about the motor smoking since it's not mechanically connected to anything that can jam (if you build it well).

One potential problem with the vacuum idea is that the ball has to be in the right spot on the robot to get the vacuum to stick, so you probably need a good funnel system to get it there, and with only 3" of ball ingress that will be tricky on a 28" wide robot.