We took almost all our pointers for the climber from @Rob_Stehlik’s thread: Steel Tape Drive (for telescoping arm) - General Forum - Chief Delphi
The climber was the main thing that hung us up in our design. We wanted something that was simple and effective. We choose this design because, even though we have little to no experience in steel tape climbers, we felt like it would be something we can more easily prototype and build at home using 3D printed parts, rather than needing a full shop if we went with the more common elevator-style climber that we were debating using.
Also, it was fun to learn about how these things worked, and the knowledge might be useful in the future!