Intake

Semester 1

The original intake for the first semester of the Over Under 23-24 season was made with a large chain gear and rubber bands between the two side gears in order to grab onto the triball and intake it. During competitions, the intake's rubber bands seemed too thin to move the triballs in and out of a holding area right behind the intake. It was slow and the rubber bands bent more than was efficient.

Semester 2

For the second semester of our season, we decided to rework the intake of the robot and use flex wheels instead of rubber bands to pull in the triballs. We designed it such that around 6 flex wheels would be parallel to the rotation of the chain gear and would roll inwards the same direction as the triball would move inwards to the holding area. The flex wheels provided a more firm grip on the triball, making it easier to hold the triballs and push them out when necessary. Additionally, since the wheels were rotating the same direction as the chain gear that powered it, more force from the motors were transferred to the flex wheels' rotation rather than with the rubber bands, where the force applied was perpendicular to the orientation of the rubber bands. Additionally, the flex wheel intake was more reliable for us in our autonomous routine test than the rubber band intake was.

The second semester intake is powered by the PTO system, which transfers power from two motors in the back to the chain gear connected to the flex wheels through pneumatics that connect two gears together, transferring power through chain rotation to the gears that power the intake.