Collecting Ground Items with the Chute
The 
Chute is a basic item transport block designed for collecting items from the ground. It functions as a simple wooden variant of a hopper.
Chute Crafting
To craft a Chute, combine five 
Oak Planks with one 
Dark Oak Log in a crafting grid.
Chute Mechanics
The primary purpose of a Chute is to pick up dropped items from the ground. Unlike a standard hopper, a Chute does not have any internal storage capacity. Any item it collects is immediately passed downwards to a connected container.
The Chute can only transfer items in one direction: straight down. It does not allow for directional changes or side connections.
Chute Uses
Chutes are useful for automating the collection of items that are dropped onto the ground. They can be placed directly above a chest or other inventory block to funnel collected items into storage. This makes them suitable for cleanup operations in areas where items might accumulate on the ground.
Chute Minecart
A specialized variant, the 
Chute Minecart, combines the functionality of a Chute with a minecart. This allows for mobile collection of ground items. The Chute Minecart picks up items as it moves and transfers them directly into any container positioned below its path. This is particularly effective for large-scale cleanup tasks.
The whole mod is five items
Hopper Gadgetry is five items, no blocks at all, and six crafting recipes. Everything it adds is placed from an item rather than being a block in its own right, which is why the mod's page count is five.
That size is the useful context for anything below: there is no tier system and nothing to unlock. Craft the six recipes and you have the complete mod.
Where it fits against vanilla
These components extend vanilla hopper behaviour rather than replacing it, so a working knowledge of hopper rules — pull from above, push to the front-facing block, locked by redstone — carries over directly. Nothing here changes those fundamentals; the components add routing and shape that vanilla hoppers cannot express.
Both versions match
The 1.21.1 and 1.20.1 builds carry the same six crafting recipes, so any layout described for one works on the other without adjustment.
Planning a build
Because everything is crafted from a short recipe list and none of it needs a machine, the practical approach is to build one of each component first and lay them out before committing to a large system. With only five items to combine, the design space is small enough to work out by hand.
Covers the mod’s in-game guide topics: Chute