I’ve been thinking of intake ideas and it seems to make sense to store at least some of the balls in the intake outside of the frame perimeter. Otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be enough space within the perimeter to store all five balls without using a hopper, which seems like a huge waste of space. My idea was that the intake would span the width of the robot and use mecanum wheels to push the balls towards the middle, where a conveyor could turn on and bring the balls to the shooter, however I’ve been hearing that the balls do not interact with each other well, and tend to stick together and get caught in places. What are other people doing for storing and transporting balls while avoiding the sticking issues?
Like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxU526QgVks
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That’s a really cool design, I had never thought of that! The only problem is that it only carries 3 balls, and I don’t think there would be space to modify it to hold 5.
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You may want to also note that these balls compress, so your holding mechanism doesn’t necessarily have to be 35 inches long. I think (but haven’t tested) that you could easily fit all 5 balls into a 25 inch mechanism.
You might also be interested in our 2017 FTC robot design, I’ll see if I can dig up any pictures.
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Keep in mind you also have the freedom to resize your frame perimeter if you want.
Depending on how you design the intake, you might only need to hold onto the balls close to their center points (because, you know, sphere). That would mean you could get away with something just larger than 28" wide (the center to center distance of the two outermost balls), which is well within the realm of reasonable drivetrain widths.
With a square frame (30"x30") or even slightly wide (32" width x 28" long) you would have enough room.
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I am kind of hesitant about pressing balls together because of their tendency to stick together and get caught in the mechanism, but it’s worth trying out I suppose.
These balls are like glue against each other–tremendously sticky. Intake and indexing has been interesting so far.
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If you go down this path, it is critical to have belts on both sides of the conveyor whenever possible. Balls compressed into each other + trying to “roll through” a one side conveyor = a jam. At least with a two sided conveyor the balls do not move relative to one another.
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