This one has me stumped. What are some efficient ways to get one of these balls from the ground to your shooter?
Currently we have a tube with 1 Wheel on each side that guides the balls up, but this seems inefficient.
Belts. nuff said.
This.
Belts are a really good idea for this, as aforementioned. Imagine having one wall stationary, and squeezing the balls against it is a belt system with rollers, to raise it up to a given throwing wheel. That’s what you’re gonna want, as that will give you the best results. This is a tried and true method from my years of experience. Good luck!
beltseltsbeltsbelts =D But people have already said this.
We already tested some belts today and they work fine with these balls.
Thanks alot for elaborating on the idea. I was looking for the best way to do it and it looks like the answer is clear.
In 2009, 2470 used a conveyor belt to pick up balls and put them in our hopper. With this year’s game I think you would need a vertical implementation of a conveyor belt system. That way once you are at the top of the system you can just have the ball plop right down inside of your turret/cannon/catapult.
Check out these matches and look further into teams that interest you. There are still some good photos of teams form those years on chief.
I third the belts comment. I have seen a lot of successes with the use of belts. To state further ideas, a spiral with a constantly spinning axle with hard brushes has been a consistent means of gathering balls. It is whatever you think is the most optimal means; I love your idea of a tube with wheels, but just providing insight on what has been effective. 
This is a good idea, however you wouldn’t want to make it be able to hold very many balls to reduce the risk of carrying more than three and reduce the time it takes for the balls to get from the ground to the launching mechanism. It would really only be useful for a specific design that requires this for something the belts can’t do. Not trying to shoot down the idea, just clarifying any downsides.
I complete understand, and agree; I was continuing references, and the spiral one was often displayed in Lunacy, where multiple balls could be held at a time (sorry for not clarifying).
I do think belts would be efficient means of transport, but as stated, just throwing out other ideas. Trying to get the good ol’ brain pumping, ya know? 
Definitely. At this point, basically anything is game until we’ve found a real legitimate reason not to use it. We would probably also end up seeing one or two new ways of picking up balls that we didn’t see in Lunacy.
Check FRC Designs for some of the Lunacy CAD’s of conveyors.
Has someone already mentioned belts? And maybe also about belts, and other possibilities involving belts?
Oh yeah, there’s also this cool thing called a belt drive/conveyor system, which runs on BELLTTTSSS
Moving onto another part of the turret, any ideas on how to power/motorize the lazy susans? All I’ve heard is make your own custom large sprocket. Seeing as how that really isn’t an option for my team, any team have any household solutions for this?
- Sunny G.
Maybe a motor with an encoder. Can you fit an encoder on a window motor? or maybe on that new andymark planetary gear?
You can do it on the cheap very easily. Like this:
We used a globe motor and a large gear from the kit. For the large gear, we cut out a circle, bolted it to a lazy susan, and then stapled belting around the outside.
…it was absolutely, disastrously the wrong solution for Lunacy, but I think it could work quite well for Rebound Rumble.
Oh, and with lazy susan, belt, and gear in the kit, the net cost was somewhere around $4 for the plywood.
It’s worth noting as well that the shooter was very wide because orbit balls were so frustratingly irregular – methinks you could get away with a pitching machine-style pair of wheels with these balls. (Prototyping is yet to come for us on that score!)
A large pulley such as used on a swamp cooler (it’s a southwest thing), and a V belt is how we did it in 2009. Worked great. We used ball bearings that fit in the pulley over the belt to support the turret.
here’s a partial view of how it was built. I think it was still a prototype at this stage, but the same turret drive/support parts were used on the final version.
http://photos.project1726.org/albums/userpics/10010/normal_IMG_0442.JPG
I had this idea, which our team is currently working on, where you make a half-circle of wireframe pipe that can fit the ball from under the 'bot to the top, then put at the center of the circle a wheel with prongs sticking out of it that move the balls around the loop (the prongs stick through the tube). Does that make sense?
If you can deal with the turret having a limited range of motion, your “sprocket” can be a wooden disk with chain bolted to the outer edge and driven by a smaller sprocket. You can either have the chain make a typical loop around the driving sprocket, or just have the chain in a circle around the disk and drive it as if it were a gear.