I’m relatively new to robotics and our team is trying to use the titler strategy(like many use in the China finals). The design seems simple, but before we try to build it I want to no if there is a caveat that we should be aware of. If your team is using the same strategy, what problems did you have and how did you fix it?
the main issue as far as I can tell with this design is that it can be easy to defend, as ramming into a loaded tray tends to spill almost all of the cubes. but there are many things you could do to fix this.
I would just start by building a base, and then working from there. The intake is the hardest to get right. I would watch some YouTube videos to get ideas and then implement them on your robot. Also, any questions you have, the Vex Forum will probably have an answer. I hope this helps 
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I’d say that the tilter is the hardest to get right. The intake was pretty easy for me 
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Lucky, our intake cant get past 7 cubes. You can look at tilter designs. I would just gear them alot and then ajust from there. Thats what we did.
***not 7 cubes 5 cubes
Do you use rubber bands to tension them? How are they arranged?
they are on ams kind of like 448X. We tension them with rubber bands, but I think the problem is with the rollers themselfs. like they just don’t grip
Thanks so much, I never thought about that. It gives me a lot to think about
A locking mechanism might help you to prevent the intake from being pushed outward too much which should help to grip the cubes better and hold more cubes. We were having the same problems with the cubes sliding out of our intake at around 6 or not being able to push up the cubes, even with a large amount of rubber bands. Although I haven’t made the addition yet, I think it should help out.
@MrSoup if you can intake that many w/o a lock, that’s great! 448x has a good lock design and I kinda stole it: 
The hardest part to get right is definitely the intakes, as you have to line them up so that they separate on contact with the tray IN PERFECT TIMING, to place stacks. there are multiple ways to place stacks, however, but this is the fastest and most efficient way. While I can see that the tray would be a challenge to get right for someone without any plan whatsoever, if you know what gear ratio to use beforehand, it will most likely work first try. And there’s not much else to it after that. The intake however must be properly compressed, able to be folded back (unless you have a small base), and it must be calculated precisely with timing and pressure in order to place a stack. This is referring to if your going for a big stack like 8+. Everyone keeps saying that tray bots are the easiest to build vs. DR4Bs, but I still disagree. Go and build a tray bot yourself that stacks 8 as fast as 1961z in their reveal, but then have the intakes able to fold out at the start. then you will find out how much harder it is to make.
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that’s why i dont have an intake that folds out.
if you’re new to robotics, i wouldn’t really recommend starting off with a 448x design (traybot) there are a lot of small things like geometry and weird angles you need to figure out until it starts working. for a beginner design, i’d recommend making a clawbot like 21000c, i think you’d end up learning more from building a clawbot rather than a traybot while at the same time staying competitive.
there are 3 freshman teams at our club trying to make traybots and im going to be completely honest, its not going amazing.
but if you’re going to try a traybot, 448x has a documentary that talks about some of reason why it works and some of the smaller details that’ll be important to understanding how it works.
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I would say to start out with a simple tray. It does away with the tricky geometry and whatnot that a complex tray has to deal with. It also requires less tuning than a dr4b. (And easier to build imo) just keep in mind you need a way to tower score that the simple tray doesn’t do
Just like most people already said, I think that that getting the intake just right took my team the most time to figure out. We were able to quickly figure out how to make the base and all of the components, but when everything was put together, lets just say it did not work well. The angle and compression of the intake was pretty frustrating to nail down. But for my team the tilter did not cause any major problems.
For tilter strategies, when it comes to filters, make sure that the gears dont catch on anything. I accidentally did that and my tilter pretty much commited sudoku.
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yes, tilter gears and cables don’t go together well.
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Oh no, I didn’t get it stuck on cables. I mean AN ENTIRE FREAKING C CHANNEL
Fingers too. catapults were dangerous, but I think I’ve crushed my fingers more than last year.
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