Who has popped their game pieces already?

[sanddrag]

Well, how are they holding up? Ours no longer hold air very long. Not the most durable thing.

[Mr_smith]

Duck tape? I'm sure it's possible to make new one from foam block.

[Thermal]

Actually I fully disagree. These tubes seem to have much more durability than the tubes given in 2007. I don't think we'll have any issue with them as long as we prevent people from sitting on them or waving knives around them (or waving knives in general, actually)

[Karibou]

As compared to yesterday afternoon, have lost a noticeable amount of air. Not enough to make them impossible to manipulate, but it makes me wonder how they'll hold up during a match.

[Hallry]

As compared to yesterday afternoon, have lost a noticeable amount of air. Not enough to make them impossible to manipulate, but it makes me wonder how they'll hold up during a match.

Remember, they're still in play until the end of the match :yikes:

[Jeff Waegelin]

Haven't popped any yet, but ours definitely lost air overnight, also.

[spacepenguine]

Our blue square actually had a leak in the seam straight out of the box. :ahh: I think we deflated the rest of the game pieces after our kickoff meeting though.

[Steve-Man]

Hm, I'll be sure to find out at some point today. From the looks of things, it seems like they aren't as durable as I'd have hoped them to be. Not a big deal considering they could explode on the rack and still be in play, but something to keep in mind if anything else.

[Bill_B]

We can already recognize the gold-plate and diamond teams. However, this year may see another class emerge. What shall we call the team whose robot can pick up and hang a deflated game piece?!? Genuflection-worthy, fer sher.






So is re-inflation forbidden?

[Tetraman]

They are better then they were back in Rack n Roll, but they aren't bust proof. I can still see a big issue with tiny holes and leaking air.

Field Reset is going to have a blast!

[vhcook]

We had an out-of-box failure on our circle, but the square and triangle are holding up nicely so far.

[Chris is me]

Ours held air over the weekend with no problem at all, even after tossing them around a bit. I'm impressed.

[Steve-Man]

Well, aside from people tossing the tubes around, they seem durable enough. Not outstanding, but not as fragile as I thought they'd be.

Although after handling them I can safely say that I'm going to pay special attention to making sure the buggers don't pop.

[Bjenks548]

Field Reset is going to have a blast!

They are gunna have even more of a blast trying to get tubes off the top rack :eek:

[Steve-Man]

They are gunna have even more of a blast trying to get tubes off the top rack :eek:

The ball retriever poles from last year may come in handy for that, come to think of it.

[flamingtoaster]

Ours was almost popped so now we don't let anyone touch them.

[Tetraman]

The ball retriever poles from last year may come in handy for that, come to think of it.

Nah...We just had some tall people on the Field Reset crew.

Being the short guy, my job was to blow them up and find the hundreds of holes and tape them up.

My team has a strict NO TOUCHY law for the tubes until they have gone through some training.

[O'Sancheski]

we have ours in a no student touch zone... lol

[mayde]

I think it's funny how inconsistent they are. some people have already popped theirs, and some were defective from the getgo. we've avoided taking ours out and inflating them for that reason, we don't want them to be trashed before we need them to test on.

i foresee a great deal of duct tape on the agenda for this season.

[emusteve]

We inflated our circle, and noticed it was the same size as the 2007 tubes, almost exactly! We're doing all our development work with our supply of 2007 tubes (we have 8 so far holding air), and saving this year's for final design tuning and practice.

[Koko Ed]

I think the best way to ensure that your game pieces endure the entire build season is to avoid handling them unless necessary (like testing a completed robot which I seriously doubt anyone has yet). Instead of throwing the things around the shop and risk damaging them wouldn't that time be better spent designing a better robot? Get back to work kiddies.

[Stephen of REX]

We haven't blown ours up yet, because we haven't had anything to test them with yet. The later we blow them up and the less we handle them, the longer the tubes are going to last.