The spread of pinching rollers this year

[Triple B]

233s final configuration was inspired by Karthik (1114) and the Poofs/RAWC (254/968). We started out with a floating top roller on linear bearings and a fixed lower bar. This worked well and the ball stayed in contact with the floor all through testing. However we found at UCF that the ball was lifting when we went onto the 1/2" plywood transition at the base of the humps. We did fine as long as we stayed off those transitions. 233, as always, was in continuous improvement mode @ UCF and we were still working out the bugs until they through us out of the pits long after the finals of competition that Saturday. We then attatched the lower bar to our linear shafts which allowed the ball to stay on the ground even if you pick the robot off the ground. We also changed our top roller covering to Kanagasabapathane, please correct me Karthik if I misspelled that.
Hope this helps you Adam,
mike d

[Josh Fox]

Team RUSH dual-pathed ball possession mechanisms this year during prototyping.

We were working on a single-roller design, as well as a setup consisting of 2 powered rollers.

After testing both prototypes, we realized that the "pinch" was working much more effectively than the single roller design.

After a little more testing we discovered that having only one roller powered and a bottom bar gave the same effect as both rollers powered, so for simplicity's sake we powered only the top. We also had a flat hard stop to prevent the ball from going > 3" inside our frame perimeter.

We spring loaded the bottom bar down to ensure ball contact with the floor at all times but still received several carrying penalties (most courtesy of Richard ), but with a bit of tweaking mechanically and of driver actions we managed to avoid them entirely after our first 2 events.