Team 45's Balldrop

[Kyle Love]

What: 2005-6 Ball Drop!
Where: Kokomo, IN. on the square
When: December 31st 10:30-12:15

As some of you know, the Technokats have created a new years eve ball twice now. We use the ball in downtown Kokomo to welcome in the new year with people from Kokomo and surrounding areas. Are far as I know, we are one of the smallest cities to do this.

*History*
The first ball was made back in 1998. The Main Street committee wanted something to bring people out and have fun, so they figured we could pull off a pretty nice ball, and we did. So, Kokomo welcomed in the 1999 New Year with a new ball. It was made of an aluminum shell and had around 300 "big" Christmas tree lights. The ball was used from 1999-2004. About then, the original ball started to show some wear and tear so Mark Koors decided to design the second ball for the city. The new ball has over 30,000 LEDS and "high powered" LEDS in the center of each triangular panel. (the pics will explain all this much better). We use a winch to lower the ball down the side of a bank on the town square. This has been a good way for the people of our city to know who the Technokats are, since much don't pay attention to our FIRST competition season. We get around 5,000 people downtown for the event. It is an awesome site to hear 5,000 people counting down and having a cool looking ball come down the side of the building. If any of you are in the Kokomo area I would like to see you there! It's well worth a trip to Kokomo to see it!

If you want to see the video of the ball dropping last year go here (http://www.technokats.org/movies/balldrop05.wmv).

All are welcome!!

Questions? Comments?

[Pat McCarthy]

Very, Very, Very cool.

Back for Milford's 1999-2000 New Year's Celebration, the HOT Team built a ball drop rig also. We mounted it on top of our old HOT Truck (the Chevy Box Van with a 502 dropped in). There was a slideshow of it that I was going to post, that was on our yahoo groups site, but I think that yahoo removed a bunch of our old stuff a while back.

[Mike]

Out of curiosity, how much did the second ball cost to make? Was it funded by the town, or the team? How long did it take you guys? How is it powered? This is a robotics forum, give us the tech specs! :P

But anyways, it looks real good. Can you program any light sequence into it?
-Imagines playing Sphere Pong on ball as it is dropping-

[Kyle Love]

Out of curiosity, how much did the second ball cost to make? Was it funded by the town, or the team? How long did it take you guys? How is it powered? This is a robotics forum, give us the tech specs! :P

But anyways, it looks real good. Can you program any light sequence into it?
-Imagines playing Sphere Pong on ball as it is dropping-

Here are my unsophisticated answers...:rolleyes:

I'm not sure on the cost, but I believe it was relatively cheap for how cool it is.
It was mainly funded by the team, I believe.
It took us months to get it built, since we really didn't say "OK it will be done this week..." or something like that.
It's powered by 4 power supplies inside the ball that get power from and "umbilical" cord that comes out of it.
Any light sequence can be programmed. But, I'm not a programmer so I'm sure Alan Anderson could give you specs on all the programming. (It actually could count down on the ball last year from 60-0 but last year was a big mess up :o and the program didn't get started on time.)

*If my answers aren't all correct please correct me, Andy, Alan, Amy*

[Kyle Love]

*update*

The ball was mounted downtown yesterday. It's ready to go! Anyone in the area come over and help ring in the New Year with an amazing Ball with new strobes on it. Or, you can see video on it in a few weeks on the Technokat website.

[Andy Baker]

The TechnoKats are looking forward to "having a ball" in Atlanta. Not only will we be scoring Poof balls on the field, but we will also be shining a very big ball in our pit.

For the first time since the TechnoKats started the "Kokomo New Year's Eve Ball Drop" back in 1999, we will finally be bringing our New Year's Eve ball to the FIRST Championships.

This thing is sooo cool, we just gotta bring it down.

To imagine what it is, think about combining the jumbo-tron at Turner Field, a disco ball, and the "death star" from Star Wars.

Yep, we will have a 4 foot diameter New Year's Eve ball, with all 32,000 LEDS flashing in our pit. There are also white strobes placed throughout the ball. The LEDs give us any color we want, and can provide some hypnotic patterns (simulated spinning, colorful flashing, etc.).

Our old ball (with only 350 large Christmas tree lights) will remain in our shop, unused. It was put out to pasture after a flickering fuss during the 2004 Ball Drop.

Yep, we're gonna have a ball.

Andy B.

[Kyle Love]

A warning to all, at times, if the strobes go off, you may want to wear some sunglasses!:cool: Sure to be a cool site for all of you guys to see.

[Taylor]

Will it be making an appearance at the IRI as well? Us non-regional-or-Chairman's-Award-winning/financially challenged teams would like to see it in person too.

If you are "retiring" the old ball, make all the lights green, hang it 8 feet in the air, line up a bunch of 'bots and let 'em shoot poofs. RoboPinata! (warning kids - don't eat the "candy" that falls out!)

[Clark Gilbert]

The TechnoKats are looking forward to "having a ball" in Atlanta. Not only will we be scoring Poof balls on the field, but we will also be shining a very big ball in our pit.

For the first time since the TechnoKats started the "Kokomo New Year's Eve Ball Drop" back in 1999, we will finally be bringing our New Year's Eve ball to the FIRST Championships.

This thing is sooo cool, we just gotta bring it down.

To imagine what it is, think about combining the jumbo-tron at Turner Field, a disco ball, and the "death star" from Star Wars.

Yep, we will have a 4 foot diameter New Year's Eve ball, with all 32,000 LEDS flashing in our pit. There are also white strobes placed throughout the ball. The LEDs give us any color we want, and can provide some hypnotic patterns (simulated spinning, colorful flashing, etc.).

Our old ball (with only 350 large Christmas tree lights) will remain in our shop, unused. It was put out to pasture after a flickering fuss during the 2004 Ball Drop.

Yep, we're gonna have a ball.

Andy B.

If someone could take a few pictures of this in the Technokat pit and upload them to ChiefDelphi it would be much appreciated! :D

[Elgin Clock]

If someone could take a few pictures of this in the Technokat pit and upload them to ChiefDelphi it would be much appreciated! :D

Just in case you missed it:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46932&highlight=ball+drop+years

[Kyle Love]

That's right, we're doing it again.

December 31st 2006
10:30-12:30
Downtown Kokomo, IN

We were in the local newspaper this morning. You can look at the picture and read the article if you want here (http://www.ktonline.com/local/local_story_362000405.html).

[JaneYoung]

That's right, we're doing it again.

December 31st 2006
10:30-12:30
Downtown Kokomo, IN

We were in the local newspaper this morning. You can look at the picture and read the article if you want here (http://www.ktonline.com/local/local_story_362000405.html).

It looks a mite chilly in Kokomo, brrr.
Great way to ring in the New Year.
Jane

[Schnabel]

Hope you guys have fun doing that, freezing your butts off, while I'm in Florida, bored to death.:( Some day I will be there though!

[Kyle Love]

Compared to 1999, it will be really warm. I believe it was like 10 degrees out that day.