Im can’t decide wether a top down intake is better then side? any suggestions
From our teams observations; it seems like top rollers are generally more efficient at picking up bucky balls. Although, to pick up large balls with a top roller; you would need a separate intake. With that said, we found that side rollers are more efficient overall, because you can pick up both bucky balls and large balls.
Hope our opinions can help!
Top down and side rollers both have the same performance, however they each have their disadvantages and advantages. Consider the following in relation to your robot before making a decision.
Top Roller
-uses only one motor
-picks up only your colored ball in the row of 6 bucky balls with more ease than side rollers/less time
-easier to construct and uses less space
Side Roller
-picks up large balls better than top roller
-allows a set up for launching large balls in the intake tray
10Q has been using top rollers since the beginning of the season, and we feel that there is less tuning involved with a top roller. The only thing to tune a top roller would be its height from the ground, whereas side rollers have angle facing the ground as well as distance from each other. At least those are the problems we’ve seen with side rollers.
Thanks for the help guys
It is possible to intake a large ball with a top roller, though it has to be done against the wall. If the roller is made of small sprockets and intake flaps, and is mounted to bucky ball height, it can pick up a large ball. This is done by driving the large ball against a wall and reversing the intake. The large ball rolls up over the top roller. Or at least that’s how it works on our bot. We have a combo of side and top rollers that are bevel-geared together.
That being said, I think side rollers are a better option. They were the better choice, in my opinion, for Gateway, and I think they are for Toss Up as well. This is because they’re pretty easy to modify to pick up large balls. (even if the tuning is annoying)
You can also have the top roller intake’s pivot point which is normally only like 2-5 inches from the roller all the way at the back of the robot to have a pivot point 18 inches from the roller, so that the roller can go up high enough to intake a large ball like an alligator’s mouth without a wall. This way you can intake large and Bucky balls with only 1 motor which is a great saving.
Wow that would be crazy, but i see the idea. Mabye you wouldnt need 18 thou. Even if you could just get it high enough to catch the end part of the sphere it might work
With that method wouldn’t you be wasting a lot of resources lifting the pivoting bar? Or have you found that to be negligible?
Lol, yup howards going at it ;D
Daniel, the rolling of the intake will lift the intake bar up onto the big ball
I believe that if constructed well enough, a robot can launch large balls with a top roller intake. I remember string saying that under that 103 driver skill record thread.
Yeah you can, the launcher for a top roller is actually easier to construct because the ball does not need to be moved back as far as a side roller intake does. However you need a method other than driving against a wall to make it effective, either a shovel or something like that.
Your image link is broken for me, would you (or someone who can see it) mind reposting with a different image hosting site?