Mindboards

Alright, I am just getting going in the wide world of robot building. I saw Cubestormer - wow. I am fine at programming but pretty much stink at the robot building (which is a great reason to start learning). Anyway, I would like to build a gripper that can actually grip a Rubik's cube. I have tried alot of different ways with gears and servos but really haven't found anything that securely grips the cube. The video for Cubstormer really doesn't provide me enough to see how that one works. Any ideas would really be appreciated. If I can get one gripper built that works, then I can build more and then I am off and running on this. Thanks for your help!

Probably the best way to learn is to look at other people's work: (they're all links, except for the youtube)
The Tilted Twister (first pic) comes with building instructions.

short(ish) question:

Did anyone around here ever actually build the tilted twister? (that was the short part)

I did last weekend with a friend of mine (he has an NXT so I was finally able to do some mindstorms stuff; my own NXT still being reviewed by US customs), but it kept on dropping the cube.

The problem seemed to be that the turning wasn't smooth enough and it ended up a little more twisted every time, until the gripper didn't move it but jutpst kicked it off. Has anybody had that problem before? We were uding the 2.0 version. Thanks

Wow! Thank you very much for the quick response and the very helpful information! This will definitely get me started on something that should work better than what I have been doing.