Pool Noodle Intake

By Evan

Task: Design a quick intake for the robot before competition

The night before our final qualifier, we decided that the intake system on the robot was not up to our standards. To fix this issue, we poked some holes in a pool noodle, and put surgical tubing through it. While this was a quick and semi effective fix, it did have some problems, mostly due to the rushed nature of its construction. The tubing slid back and forth, and the noodle itself was slightly offset from the depositing box, causing it to be a little off. It could only be remedied by taping all the surgical tubing together, allowing it to grip the minerals better and allow for a smoother intake. The other big issue with this version of the intake was that the depositing mechanism was imprecise and required very accurate driver control and a little bit of luck.

Next Steps

This isn't a permanent solution, but we need to have something simple so that we can intake the gold and silver particles at the tournament. We plan to replace this with the actual corn on the cob intake after the competition.