View Full Version : 2016 Boulder weight issue
catmanjake
20-01-2016, 17:39
All,
Has anyone received multiple FIRST boulders or ones from Gopher and compared the weight? We received 6 of the Gopher balls today and they are different weights and only 1 was close to the official FIRST boulder we received in our Kit of Parts. Some of the weights are so different that we think that they will shoot differently. Let me know your thoughts.
Some of the weights are so different that we think that they will shoot differently.
Please post the weights you measured.
catmanjake
20-01-2016, 18:12
Official FIRST boulder - 292 grams
Gopher boulders were 326, 358, 359, 359, 362 and 388 grams.
Jared Russell
20-01-2016, 18:28
How do they compare in terms of surface texture, firmness, and size?
perhaps the colors are related to the mass?
This is an issue with frisbees where the titanium in the dye make the white frisbees stiffer.
catmanjake
20-01-2016, 18:45
We are not finding any other real difference other than the weight. We ordered the 6 pack rainbow colored balls the same day of kickoff and they just arrived today. Hoping others can check theirs to compare as well. We would also like to know if teams have a couple of the official boulders to see what the weights are of theirs.
Gopher boulders were 326, 358, 359, 359, 362 and 388 grams.
We are not finding any other real difference other than the weight. We ordered the 6 pack rainbow colored balls the same day of kickoff and they just arrived today. Hoping others can check theirs to compare as well. We would also like to know if teams have a couple of the official boulders to see what the weights are of theirs.
Can you label the weights you posted with that Boulder's specific color? I'm interested to see if other teams who also bought the rainbow 6 pack find that their respectively colored Boulders weigh the same.
Doug Frisk
20-01-2016, 19:20
Official FIRST boulder - 292 grams
Gopher boulders were 326, 358, 359, 359, 362 and 388 grams.
Given the humidity in Duluth is just about zero it's possible that the one that's been in town for 2 weeks is much drier than the new ones.
catmanjake
20-01-2016, 19:38
Here are weights by color.
Yellow - 359
Orange - 326
Orange - 362
Purple - 358
Purple - 359
Blue - 388
I take it nobody else has received these yet to compare? Has anyone received multiple gray FIRST boulders yet to compare?
s_forbes
20-01-2016, 19:44
Our KOP ball is 281 grams. We got two more from andymark in week 1, and they weigh in at 289 and 285 grams. I'm surprised that some of the balls could weigh 30% more, pretty interesting. Hopefully the ones at competition will be from the same batch...
Louisiana Jones
20-01-2016, 19:51
We measured our 4 grey boulders at
283 g
284 g
288 g
292 g
Rangel(kf7fdb)
20-01-2016, 19:54
Seems like the gray boulders are pretty consistent(in mass at least) and the colored ones are different. Anyone else ordered colored balls and measured them?
bobcroucher
20-01-2016, 20:09
Here are the weights for ours, our scale only measures to the nearest 5g:
Original in KOP: 295g
New FIRST boulders (grey) recieved yesterday:
285g
285g
300g
Of much greater concern to our team is the remarkable increase in stiffness of all of the new balls. Our shooter compresses the ball, so the new stiffer balls slow the motors more and travel significantly less distance. We set up a jig to measure the force required to compress each ball to 8 inches. Results...
Original KOP Ball:
6,300g
New Balls:
11,860g
11,235g
12,890g
We don't know how much of this is due to the older ball being broken in, but we don't believe that it ever flew that poorly even when new. So is it an issue with differences in the foam from batch to batch or was the first ball just an outlier?
We will post a picture of how we measured the compression. If you can obtain data for your own boulders to compare, please post them as well.
Image: to be posted soon
We have not bought any due to the pricing but I am curious as the fluctuation in weight.
FYRERobot5480
20-01-2016, 21:57
We are wondering about the diameter of the balls, having only 1 ball, we can't compare weights, but the manual says the ball is 10" diameter, but ours is measuring as 9 5/8th.
Anyone else noticed this? We are wondering if it has to do with our altitude, (almost 5000 ft) and how competing at lower altitude could affect our shooter if the size changes this much.
Grim Tuesday
20-01-2016, 23:29
This compression issue arose in 2012. Wise teams will design shooters that hit the target regardless of compression status.
waialua359
21-01-2016, 00:40
Here are weights by color.
Yellow - 359
Orange - 326
Orange - 362
Purple - 358
Purple - 359
Blue - 388
I take it nobody else has received these yet to compare? Has anyone received multiple gray FIRST boulders yet to compare?
The Yellow and the 2nd Purple ones are good.:)
electronicsdude
21-01-2016, 01:02
All,
Has anyone received multiple FIRST boulders or ones from Gopher and compared the weight? We received 6 of the Gopher balls today and they are different weights and only 1 was close to the official FIRST boulder we received in our Kit of Parts. Some of the weights are so different that we think that they will shoot differently. Let me know your thoughts.
For a ball meant for playing dodgeball it seems like a reasonable margin or error.
The solution in my mind is to minimize the projectile weight's effect on your trajectory. Basically shoot that s.o.b as fast as possible. Then you minimize the arc in the shot and hence minimize the necessity for a perfectly normal weight in your projectile.
Granted, this wont work if your ball is REALLY light or REALLY heavy.
electroken
21-01-2016, 05:59
We are wondering about the diameter of the balls, having only 1 ball, we can't compare weights, but the manual says the ball is 10" diameter, but ours is measuring as 9 5/8th.
Anyone else noticed this? We are wondering if it has to do with our altitude, (almost 5000 ft) and how competing at lower altitude could affect our shooter if the size changes this much.
The balls aren't sealed, or at least ours is not. It has one small (0.1" -ish) orifice in the outer covering, so I would not expect any difference in diameter due to changes in barometric pressure.
The ball that came in our KOP measures 9.7" in diameter at 300 feet above sea level and weighs 290g.
James Juncker
21-01-2016, 06:47
I'll attempt to weigh and measure my teams boulders but we bought a couple of the gray boulders and not the rainbow pack.
We don't know how much of this is due to the older ball being broken in, but we don't believe that it ever flew that poorly even when new.
While we didn't take any measurements of it, I definitely remember our ball being much harder to compress on kickoff day than it is now. My initial impression was that it had about 3/4" of foam over a stiff core, now it's clearly memory foam all the way through.
nakarsten
21-01-2016, 16:18
We just received a six pack of the colored balls from Gopher. The are different than the original ball/boulder received in the kit of parts. The balls are heavier and significantly less compressible.
The Doctor
21-01-2016, 16:26
Anyone else noticed this? We are wondering if it has to do with our altitude, (almost 5000 ft) and how competing at lower altitude could affect our shooter if the size changes this much.
The surface is porous, so the boulders shouldn't necessarily change with altitude.
We just received a six pack of the colored balls from Gopher. The are different than the original ball/boulder received in the kit of parts. The balls are heavier and significantly less compressible.
Can you please weigh them and list their respective color?
Schroedes23
21-01-2016, 17:45
Team 1625 has 10 boulders ordered from Andymark and our 1 KOP boulder.
Our KOP ball has weighed in 281.22 g
Andymark Boulders
3 at 290.30 g
6 at 285.76 g
1 at 281.22 g
Can you please weigh them and list their respective color?
Your high school's chemistry lab may have triple-beam balances. You can get very accurate measurements with those.
My O'Haus triple beam goes up to 610 grams.
JamesCH95
21-01-2016, 19:29
We are wondering about the diameter of the balls, having only 1 ball, we can't compare weights, but the manual says the ball is 10" diameter, but ours is measuring as 9 5/8th.
Anyone else noticed this? We are wondering if it has to do with our altitude, (almost 5000 ft) and how competing at lower altitude could affect our shooter if the size changes this much.
For diameters see: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141606
Tyler Olds
21-01-2016, 21:22
Wave Robotics Boulders:
KoP: 282.6 grams Edit: Just realized what this was and no it was not a joke. I think I got Glenn beat :-P
Boulders from AndyMark:
Boulder 1:285.8 grams
Boulder 2:284.9 grams
Boulder 3:278.5 grams
Boulder 4:290.8 grams
Boulder 5:291.7 grams
Boulder 6:280.3 grams
We recieved 9 orange balls directly from gophersport. We originally ordered the rainbow colored balls but received an email asking if we were an FRC team and asked us to correct our order. Out of our 9 orange balls, 8 weighed 0.62lbs(281g) and 1 weighed 0.60lbs(272g). The KOP boulder weighed 0.64lbs(290g). If you are ordering from gophersport the correct item number is 99-634 (http://www.gophersport.com/pe/pe-equip-balls-foam/gopher-10-dia-coated-foam-ball-for-first-robotics-competition?sku_id=13898) for the FRC version and they are ordered individually.
MakeShift Boulders (from AndyMark):
Boulder 1: 284.4 grams 10" diameter
Boulder 2: 289.7 grams 10" diameter
Boulder 3: 285.6 grams 9-1/2" diameter
Boulder 4: 291.3 grams 9-1/2" diameter
Boulder 5: 287.5 grams 10" diameter
evanperryg
22-01-2016, 23:00
We are wondering about the diameter of the balls, having only 1 ball, we can't compare weights, but the manual says the ball is 10" diameter, but ours is measuring as 9 5/8th.
Anyone else noticed this? We are wondering if it has to do with our altitude, (almost 5000 ft) and how competing at lower altitude could affect our shooter if the size changes this much.
We noticed this as well, and we're at 577ft so I'm sure that's not it :D . We haven't dimensioned the two additional balls we purchased, but the KOP ball definitely comes in at a little less than 10." We haven't massed any of them, but if the humidity has to do with it, the balls should equalize over time. Those of you who have posted ball weights, if you are able to provide your shop's temperatures and humidity, I'd like to start organizing some of this data more nicely.
When I massed our boulders today, they were quite consistent. We only have grey, FIRST branded balls from Andymark.
Original KOP boulder: 283.3g
Additional boulders from Andymark:
285.8g
286.6g
284.2g
285.5g
AllenGregoryIV
23-01-2016, 13:38
Here are our weights. All AndyMark Boulders.
1 272.13 kick off ball
2 283.14
3 293.48
4 282.39
5 284.73
s_forbes
23-01-2016, 21:03
I made a spreadsheet for the gray boulders listed in this thread here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PZJ6hei8Mr7E0NppEgsyAwAE9R5BG1UT3BHifN5DAT4/edit?usp=sharing
If anyone has more boulders to add, please do so!
Statistics so far:
Avg mass: 286.3 grams
Standard deviation: 4.72
Standard deviation (as percentage of total mass): 1.65%
Can't wait to see the spreadsheet in a little bit. +1
I made a spreadsheet for the gray boulders listed in this thread here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PZJ6hei8Mr7E0NppEgsyAwAE9R5BG1UT3BHifN5DAT4/edit?usp=sharing
If anyone has more boulders to add, please do so!
Statistics so far:
Avg mass: 286.3 grams
Standard deviation: 4.72
Standard deviation (as percentage of total mass): 1.65%
Pauline Tasci
24-01-2016, 02:15
S All the boulders Code Orange has ordered have come in and here is the information we have gathered. We have 12 gopher balls, one KOP ball, and 10 andymark balls.
A=ball number
B= circumfrence
C= diameter
D= vendor
E= weight
Thanks!
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