Suction gripper

[BJC]

I think that a gripper like this would probably be pretty successful.

[Orion.DeYoe]

Originally Posted by ghostman126

So here are the details of the competition,

the cones are placed in a stack

and I need to pick them up and place them in cones like
and like

We have planned to build an elevator on a turntable to pick the cones up one by one and store the so that we can place them later. We are thinking of using suction to do so (plan B is to use a high friction claw using suction cup tape to squeeze them). We know that for suction there are a few types, using compressed air through a vacuum generator and using a suction generator like a vacuum cleaner directly. We are wondering if anyone have any ideas/experiences on building these suction assemblies

That's a neat challenge. Do you have to pick up one at a time? If not then I would just have a thin fork-shaped plate that slides underneath and picks up the whole stack lol.
If not I would use some sort of sticky material on two fingers (to go on either side of the vertical peg) so that you can just lower your elevator on top of the cone and then raise it back up with the cone sticking to the fingers. Then your fingers can be on some sort of actuated arm that rotates up 90 degrees (look at the elevators and grippers from FRC 2011, Logomotion), you can then slide the disc forward onto the peg and pull downwards with your elevator to pull the sticky tape off of the disc.
That's how I would do it.