The 3 Way Intake allows us to efficiently collect artifacts from 3 sides at the same time. It’s also over twice as fast as it was at the Whitewater Qualifier in December 2025. Lower roller - The first thing that the artifacts will hit will be the lower roller. This roller is what draws the artifacts into the robot and the rest of the intake. It consists of a shaft (parallel to the ground) that is held up by two eyelets. On the shaft are 8 squishy rollers that cover the intake width. Lower Ramp - The lower ramp keeps the artifact compressed and centered when the lower roller is lifting it off the ground. Upper Ramp - The upper ramp is attached to the center disk (see left) and keeps compression for the upper roller and is much thinner allowing for efficient, durable, and light intake from the forward, left, and right sides of the robot. This took 7 iterations!

Intake Improvements

The first intake design had a single bottom roller to pull in the artifacts; this restricted artifact movement into the second floor and hopper. A ramp was then added that went halfway up the intake. this made it possible to lift the artifacts off the ground, however it was not able to raise it fully to the hopper. Noticing this we added a second spinning roller with a large wheel for the rubber ring. This single wheel was too large in diameter and too thin, causing it to get stuck in the artifact holes. We settled on this final wheel, combined with dual rollers, spaced wider than the holes to effectively optimize intake (see below). We then added what we called the “khakis” (they initially looked like pants) to get the artifact up to the hopper. The design was modified to become the upper ramp (right). 

Hopper Base iterations

The first hopper iteration had three holes for the artifacts to sit inside. It also had walls on the side to keep artifacts from falling out. We then decided on four holes, got rid of the walls, and added a static lower ring that was smaller than the hopper to keep the artifacts inside the hopper and created a surface for them to roll on. We replaced the walls on our initial hopper with a ring attached to the launch mechanism. 

We have a 3d printed fully rotatable tail which helps us lift off the ground when it is time to hang! This allows us to never get caught on anything and always consistently reach level 3. Alongside the tail, our hanging system is inspired by carabiners and extension ladders, we have four hooks, 2 static and 2 moving, which have 3D-printed ends to always grab on the bars. We can climb to infinity!

See endgame climb picture below, turn to see vertically.