So recently, my team qualified for our regional championship, and I was attempting to change our intake to a 3:1 gear ratio one. To me, it seems like their are three problems:
A) The purple cube rotates in such a way that the distance between the wall and the middle of the roller is too small to push the purple further up
B) The roller stops in a fixed position [same spot every time]; maybe the rubber bands on the specific roller are too tight? (other rollers with same rubber band)
try using black rubber bands. I’ve tried them and they definitely have more of a good effect.
Also, is your flywheel stationary? If not, how does it work to collect both purple and green blocks
okay, thank you, i will look into different rubber bands.
To answer your question, my flywheel/intake is not stationary, it is connected through a four bar linkage [the front of the frame has two 1by8 beams attached to the intake, to make a kind of circular path the intake can travel in]. It collects both purples and greens due to the space between the rollers and the wall being tuned just close enough to pick up greens without them slipping, and just far enough to make purples go up semi-smoothly (other parts still need tuning).
In this case, you might want to extend the length of the 1x beams to give the purple cubes some more space in between the flywheel and the wall if it can fit in size limits.
Are you finding that the when the battery is fully charged it has an easier time collecting purples? Also, is the collection assembly capable of expanding out further to accommodate the purples, but isn’t? What happens if you give the front assembly a little assistance expanding to allow the purple to pass through?
We have a similar robot. What I think I have found out is that the collect system doesn’t have enough torque to cause the purple block to push the weight of the collection assembly forward enough to allow the purples to pass through easily.
Yeah, thats a problem for me too. The intake just kinda gets stuck & cant expand. What we did was expand our 4bar linkage from 6 → 8 pinholes. the motors are mounted in the frame of the robot to lower weight of the intake
Our team added 3 rubber bands on each side. Motors on main robot with chain drives each side to spin sprockets for combine. Purple will sometimes jam; reverse it a little and can get up combine into shelf. Our purple is not as fast as green, but it works.
Rubber bands (and I think they used 1x8 or 1x9 bars) made a big difference
