Is there any consensus forming on what is the most successful style of intake, in terms of speed, consistency, and intake area, between the El Toro intake, the over the top one, the Simbot SS style one, the two grabbers, as well as others I forgot to mention?
971 type of intake is the best type of intake.
As Captain Obvious would say: the best intake is the one that gets the ball into your robot quickly and reliably. Any of several styles can do this, if you sweat the details and get it right.
For three excellent and quite different examples, see 1114, 1986, and 2337.
Check out ours: http://youtu.be/TU76Xct-mHY?t=39s
We use a standard horizontal roller with two sideways rollers to center the ball. Using the side rollers, we can quickly pick up a ball from any angle across the full width of the robot and even from the sides of the intake. It won us the Excellence in Engineering Award at the Arizona Regional.
842 also built a unique and effective intake. It’s prominently featured in their reveal video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgk_jnu2tD0
That pickup is slick, I also like the effective over the top pickups that have been made. Similar to the VexPro Build Blitz teams. The 1114, 179, 118, 233 pickups that are all similar to the 971 pickup in some way are all very effective. I honestly, after this weekend have learned to strongly dislike the toro intakes. However, when done well. The toro intake is still effective.
My main favorite for now is the over the top intake.
The over the top roller intake works so well because it doesn’t rely on the robot being in exactly the right place, and it also “grabs” the ball instead of letting it bounce off the robot. The key is that it pushes the ball against the floor, so it can grip immediately.
The 842 grabber relies on some serious control system magic to make it so effective.
Some intakes naturally work well, and that’s the one that you want to make if you don’t have the ability to perfect a less optimal design.
Those are either photocells or ultrasonic distance, or vex touch sensors they have on the grabbers to detect the ball’s presence automatically. Simple magic maybe. Effective nonetheless.
Really? I thought it was an IR imaging system, with onboard processing.
We have a similar intake and I believe we are using an infrared sensor to close our paddles around the ball. (I could be totally wrong, I’m not an electronics guy).
2481 has a really nice intake. Approach angle can be almost anywhere.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/40169
It is an IR sensor.
Gotta love how a judge knows more about my robot than me. CAD team problems 
I’m more impressed I didn’t have to consult my notes.
I’m just happy our robot was that memorable!
My apologies for the hubris I must have to say that a feature of my team’s robot might be among “the best” at anything… but I really think a claw intake with some mechanism to pick up balls from the side is the most effective game piece manipulator this year.
Roller bar intakes (“16-style”, seen on nearly every low catapult) are by no means bad, but many of them have limitations in how they can pick up balls. Lots of these intakes can hit a ball away from them if the intake is spun into the ball. Some of these have trouble with ejecting a ball. Almost all of them have some kind of “free” state between the ball entering the robot and seating on the catapult, leaving a little potential for dropping the ball. All of these disadvantages can be designed around to the point where they are extremely effective, though.
Claw intakes (as in, at least a top roller, “1114 style”) have some unique inherent advantages regardless of design, particularly claws that articulate open / closed. A proper top roller claw intake will always contact the ball with a moving part first regardless of angle of entry. A top roller claw is unless articulated open always in contact with the ball for ejection. Articulating the claw allows for a second method to dislodge the ball from the robot in case of failure.
For a top roller claw to be effective, it needs some method of centering a ball. Many different ways to do this. Teams like 971 and 118 use the geometry of their claw structure to force the ball into the center of the claw as it enters. Other teams like 195 built a literal “CD7” - a set of side rollers added on to bring the ball in. Still others, like 2590, used mecanum wheels on the claw to center the ball and intake it from the side. This method also seems to do better with picking up balls from directly to the side of the claw, which makes sense.
In my opinion, 2791 had one of the best intakes at our two events with a combination of good claw geometry, an articulated top roller, and mecanum wheels. At Tech Valley our intake was very solid. At Finger Lakes it was almost as good, but our shooter modification made it a bit more prone to dropping the ball. I believe 2590 / 971 / others are a fair bit better, and I’d love to see them in person.
Pinch claws can be good this year and as a concept are underrated, but I really just see no advantage to them at all. A roller claw can achieve the same grip strength if spring loaded / articulated. To be blunt, I have not seen a Toro intake in person that is as effective as a top roller claw or a roller bar intake.
Using catapults, I’m going for 610’s intake. At first I was skeptical of the need for an intake like theirs, but I’ve since seen plenty of robots stuff themselves using their own intake because it has to move out of the way, outside the frame perimeter, ready to be hit back inside the frame perimeter by a defending robot.
For linear punches, I’m going for 971. It can intake a ball in multiple scenarios, including a bouncing ball.
Check out 1718 top roller design, it is done really well. The top roller is spring loaded, and has about 4" of travel, to keep contact with the ball while controlling pressure on the roll, and the sides of the arm is made of some material that flexes and springs back into position.
It was a thing of ugly beauty.
We have 1x2 thick wall aluminum tube that has not broken, but we have cracked welds after each weekend.
1718 has the bend but don’t break design, that just works better. Nice job Pi.
My team uses a top roller intake with two mechanum wheels to center the ball. It worked very well for us at Waterloo, although we had some issues with getting the arm height right. You can see it here. Sorry it is hard to see, it is the only video we have online right now.
I thought Spectrum’s (3847) El Toro was pretty effective, as well as 148’s.
233’s punch was very impressive, it didn’t have anything to center it besides a Frisbee, and even when it was off center, it still shot accurately and consistently.
But there have been great bar roller intakes too, the ones that pop into my head are 33’s and 254’s. 1538 refined this even more to keep pressure and account for variable compressions of the competition balls with the sliding rollers.
Also, not sure what category they go into, but 610’s articulated rollers are pretty cool.
I don’t see the advantage of a non-roller or pinch setup over a well-built roller system, seems like added complexity for no real benefit.
We are pretty proud of ours. Its fast and it remains in contact with the ball for fast low goal dumps.