pic: 1503 front roller

[Pat Fairbank]

Tyler and Jeff are correct; it's elastic waistband material. It wasn't the easiest stuff to work with, and we had to reinforce it with fishing line to keep the bands tight, but at least it was inexpensive.

Originally Posted by Lowfategg

Why don't you guys run a guard over it to stop it from getting hit?

We added a steel tube over top and slightly in front of the roller, sometime during the season (I think it was at GTR). It definitely helped, although there was one match on Archimedes where we took such a hard hit in autonomous that both tubes bent, and the roller being out of round caused it to get jammed against the guard as it spun, putting the entire system out of commission.

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Just gotta say, 1503, along with 148 and 1114, had one of the cleanest machines out on the field this year. Really well aesthetically and mechanically designed.

Thanks. Aesthetics was one of the things we were aiming for from the beginning, and we're very proud of how it turned out.