Ball Magnet

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Jeffy

What is the concept of how this works? (if you don't mind) or if someone else can fill me in.

The roller is mostly above the ball, it spins in the direction that drives the ball "into" the robot. We don't yet have the spec ball nor spec carpet, so we dont' know how well it will work...but the idea is to have the ball actually spinning the whole time, and as you drive the robot around the ball is always spinning on the carpet towards the bot.

As for the dimensions on our prototype...if the roller were at the very front of the FRAME PERIMETER then the ball would ingress just over three inches. We need to experiment with roller size and location to see what works.

I did notice that the ball was marked up from sitting still with the roller spinning on it, so there is more work to be done to see if this is really feasible.

Also the roller should be made only wide enough that one ball can contact it. If two balls can both be POSSESSED by the robot at once, bad penalty things happen.