Devlog 2: The intake

Hello again guys! Welcome back to more CAD Chronicles
Today, I have our intake created.

There are many different types of intakes I’ve seen this year, rubber band, vector wheel, and surgical tubing.
All of these have pros and cons, so lets go over them.

Rubber band:

Rubber band intakes is what my team used back when I was on it. It is simple, effective, and once you touch an artifact, you keep it, there is very little wrong with it. But, it is harder with those to have the intake extend the entire width of the bot, so you might not be able to intake 3 artifacts at once.

Vector wheels

Now theres 2 kinds, fixed, and pivoting (where the wheels can move up and down to comply with the artifacts). I decided, that for auto strategy since we might be contacting multiple artifacts at once, to go with a fixed design for this. Vector wheels can easily span the entire width of a bot, and also funnel into the center.

Surgical tubing

This one is a nice one, basically for those who have not seen them, it is a form of intake where there is a central hub, and tubes stick out of the hub, almost like a fan. These are supposed to catch on to artifacts and pull them in. While these are pretty good, they do not have centering and also are quite large, so they do tend to stick out the bot.

Now what did I pick?

You might be able to tell from my image, but I ended up picking a vector wheel intake!
I decided this was the best course of action, because I can easily intake 3 artifact wide, which is good for far zone cycling and also auto pattern cycling, and also it has centering. You will see in my next devlog why centering is important!