Where to buy Balls?
 

Does anyone know what ball is the official ball of the competition (who makes it, product number,etc...), We'd like to buy a bunch of them. A possible location to buy them would also be appreciated. The kit documentation gives a website, www.palossports.com, but it doesn't give anything about the ball other than its size.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

FIRST will prolly provide at least one of each size in your Kit.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

the little 5 point purple ones look like just the jelly hand balls
here is the diamiters of the balls as for the big ones ????


Small:13 inch
Large: 30 inch

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=Bigens+Balls

Look here, great site for everything.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

"Small Balls are purple, 13-inch diameter, rubber balls with a yellow "5" point value on one side.

Bonus Balls are yellow, 13-inch diameter, rubber balls with purple "10" point value on one side.

Large Balls are yellow, 34-inch diameter, rubber balls inflated to 30-inch diameter with a purple "2X" on one side."

Right from the manual baby!

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

I know the size and point value. I want to know who makes it and where to buy it. I will probably just buy generic playgorund balls, but I wanted to know if there was a specific supplier as I couldn't find the balls on the website given in the kit description.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Bigens Balls is the supplier.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

of both balls?

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

http://www.palossports.com/store/pro...D/184/file.htm

i think that there might be some here. The 13 inch ones are here, but I dont see any large ones.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Thank You

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Bigens balls supplied the large balls (30") and palos sports supplied the small balls (13").

Links are as follows:
Palos Sports (13" balls)

Bigens Ball ("yellow 34")

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

You can buy the large balls here: http://www.etoys.com/genProduct.html...tid=17&ls=toys

Or do a search for other retailers: http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=...Search+Froogle

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

KB-Toys carries the Bigens 34" ball, for $19.99 but I did not see the 13" ball available on their website. They are headquartered in Pittsfield MA (we're in Great Barrington) so I think we'll try to get them to donate (at the very least) the balls.

http://www.kbtoys.com/genProduct.htm.../D//ls/default

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

"www.bigpurpleballsfromacompanythatsponsersfirst.c om/isitakickballormoreofadodgeball?.html"

they have really good prices

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

there's one of each size in the kit

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

If you want to order both balls from Palos Sports, below are the links:

13" Balls:
http://www.palossports.com/store/pro...D/184/file.htm

34" Balls:
http://www.palossports.com/store/pro.../1597/file.htm

However, i believe that any 13" playground ball, and any 34" Gymnic ball will suffice.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Hi,

Does anyone knows if the 13" balls are the same ones as used in 2000 and 2001? I'm pretty sure the size is, but don't know if the texture is the same.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

The small balls are not the same as had been used before. Close, yes, but the same NO. Best bet it to get THE SMALL BALLS for this year's game.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Thanks for all the positive comments! means a lot!

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

I know you can get the 13" at any kmart store for $7.99 thats where we got ours but im still looking for the 30" so if any one knows where to get them besides ordering them online the please e-mail me
RAWC_968@hotmail.com

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

You can try look at your local Toys R US because i went there today and they had Bigens balls so i think most Toys R Us' have them at least that brand they might not all have the right size but its worth a shot.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Thanks. I found some at kmart but they only had 26" bigens balls and thats the biggest they have I can only find the 34" online but i dont want to wait for it to ship 2weeks

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

OK, there is some confusion here with the balls.

There are 2 different types of 13" balls on the Palos Sports site, here (13" ball 1) and here (13" ball 2) .

We gotta buy the right ball. The texture, wall thickness, material elasticity, and friction coefficient needs to be right.

I don't have the ball in front of me. Does anyone have one so that they can post the model number on the ball?

Thanks,
Andy B.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Some of my friends were in project groups at Babson that had to visit and analyze that KB Toys - and KB was very nice to them, one of the higher-ups showed them around, etc. I'm sure you'll be able to get someone to donate :)

PS - Great Barrington, eh? I had a Earth Science teacher that said he commuted from there to Watertown, CT each day.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

The Ball sitting in front of me has

CHAMPRO
PG13

DURA
PLAY
(written in a circle)

Written on it, There is no model number on it. Sorry, guess we will just have to wait for FIRST to release that info.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Almost certain it is ball 1.

John

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Well, "almost certain" is not good enough. :) I sent an email to our friends at Palos Sports. They are in the Chicago area. They are quickly learning about FIRST robotics.

The ball we need to order is the
10089 ball, or "ball2" in my above post.

Call this number: 1-800-233-5484 and talk to Jessica. She seems really nice and helpful. Tell her to go to the Midwest Regional on March 25-27 (also in Chicago).

Andy B.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Thanks for the real info Andy - sounds like alot of the newbies to CD are missing the point of these posts. Everyone, if you want to be competitive in this competition you need to work with the EXACT information and materials - including field components, motor specs, etc. and then decide what you can compromise or simulate. Testing your mechanisms and human players with ANY 13 inch playground balls versus THE 13 inch playground balls can lead you down the wrong path - they won't roll, bounce, compress, weigh the same and you'll be in trouble.

If you don't know the answer accurately, don't post it. It took 27 posts to get the right answer here.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Ok, I have a bit of a different question related to the balls here, now that it's been established where they can be bought.
Where can you get Plugs? Our 34" ball did not come with any type of plug in or around the ball to plug the air inlet. Did teams get a plug in their ball? Does anyone sell generic spare plugs?
Also, just curious how teams are inflating their balls. Our compressor doesnt have quite the right needle head (we need a plastic mini-funnel like one) and I was only able to get it to 26" by inflating it myself (using my lungs).
Any suggestions?

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Dont know if this has already been said but the ball company wont ship outside america (ie canada, brazil or here in the uk)
This is causing us some problems. anyone know of alternate suppliers or methods of getting them to the uk?

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Andy,

We ordered ball #2...
http://www.palossports.com/store/pro...D/184/file.htm


We just got them today and they are much different than the balls we got in the kit. They are much more sticky than the ones FIRST provided. I also think they have more of a wall thickness. They also have a different texture. Ball #1 is probably the right one. I guess we will just have to deal with the 15 balls we got... :ahh:
(Good thing I am not human player...)

Good Hunting
Bad Brad

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Thanks for posting this. We were just about to order 20 of those balls from Palos. Did you also order the 34" ball from them? If so, is that the correct ball?

Thanks,
~Gabriel

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Wait a second...

Ball #1 from Palos is a Tachikara ball and FIRST says explicitly in the Q&A's that the balls in Manchester were NOT Tachikara balls.

In Team Update #2 (Page 3) FIRST says that the correct model number for the ball is 10089 from Palos Sports and they add that we should not be thrown off by the color, since they are not available to us in purple and yellow as shown in Manchester. This seems to imply that 10089 will be used in competition.

BUT Brad just said that they received 10089 and that it is quite different from the ball in the kit. Does that mean that FIRST shipped us a different ball in the kit or that they will be using a different ball in the competition than the one they want us to buy?

How much does the difference between the balls matter? Surely a basketball player has to deal with balls that have slightly different textures, and weigh slightly differently? We're a rookie team so we don't really know.

Thanks,
~Gabriel

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Gabriel,

I dont know whats up with the ball number that FIRST provided but the are different!

The balls we got seem to bounce the same. But the reason I don't like the difference in the stickiness is because we want to see how the balls move on the floor when pushed by the robot. In 2000 many teams rode up on the balls and we wanted to test different wing designs :)

(the balls bind when being pushed...)

I will try to post a picture tonight on the difference of balls

Bad Brad

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

The balls we got are from:
http://www.palossports.com/store/pro...D/184/file.htm

Here is the difference:

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

It does look like PalosSports is shipping different balls under the same part number, as the identical Ball to Brad's arrived in CT as well. Besides the pattern, there are other differences.

The balls in the kit weigh around 1.5-1.7 pounds, are marked inflate to 2 lb, and are made in China. Some teams that ordered the 10089 balls early received these balls from PalosSports.

The balls Brad (& others) weigh 2 lb, are marked to inflate to 0.5 lb, and are made in Indonesia. Some teams that ordered the 10089 balls later in the first week received these balls from PalosSports.

To most of the world that buys them, these balls are "the same" - to those of us trying to design a robot to manipulate them and have a human train to shoot them, they are two very different balls.

I suspect FIRST will sort this out with PalosSports in the near future.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

I was at our local K-Mart yesterday and I saw the exact white plastic plugs in the sporting goods section that came with our ball in the KOP this year. I happened to be looking for something else when I stumbled upon them, and they were available separately (with out buying a ball) as replacements. I just wanted to post this since you and countless others seem to be missing the plugs from the KOP. If you don't have a K-Mart locally you could also try Sports Authority, Walmart, Target, ect. These stores would also carry needle and funnel point adapters for inflating balls.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

We've already busted two balls by just tossing them into our mobile goal (from a distance). We even rounded off all of the sharp edges on the ends of the pipes, and still they break. We are searching for the "right" ball, but I fear that any of them will be unable to take the abuse.

Remember last year with all the broken bins? Well looks like this year's "achilles heel" is the balls.

Neil, Team 1073

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

As the much maligned "ball breaker" of Team 1073--I'm so hiring Johnny Cochran--I agree with Neil.

So, the ball that our team got the kit of parts is the one that was made in China, says CHAMPRO across the front, and is noticeably lighter than the other kind that was described in the post with the pictures a few posts previous to this one (we bought some of those PG13 balls too).

Did anyone else receive the "other" type of ball in their KOP?

Looks like FIRST has gone the low-budget route. For those who don't check the Q&A system often--I wish I didn't have to, given how abysmally awful it is, but that is one of my jobs--this was the latest that FIRST had to say on the subject o' the balls.


Other posts on the subject include
However, it seems that part #10089 is not the required part...at least judging from pictures posted above...

I was thinking about posting on the FIRST Q&A system about this. I will be limited by the question space, but at least I can direct them to this thread. Is anybody else in the process of doing so? Even if FIRST screwed up--as it seems they have done--I don't want to unintentionally inundate them.




--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Ok, I posted a question to FIRST under section 3.2:

Will let you know ASAP when FIRST replies. Of course, they won't email it to me, because even though they make you enter in your email address for that purpose, I've never been notified when a question of mine was answered.

*sigh*

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

They aren't even shipping htem to anywhere outside the USA :( :mad:

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

You may want to post in the Q&A thing and let FIRST know.

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

we have talked to them on the phone. We are kind of going to have to ask favours... i think

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

I assume this was received by everyone in the latest email blast, but if not, here it is.

So we still don't know what ball to order...

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Petey,

Order the balls from the link posted below! The vendor that sells the balls ran out of stock of the FIRST type balls. Therefore everyone will be getting different balls similar to the FIRST type...

(whether you like it or not I guess!) :ahh:

This is the right ball
http://www.palossports.com/store/pro...D/184/file.htm

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

But this is very, very bad. It says right in the email that the balls we use at the competition will be different than the balls we can buy.

This is *not* good. I think we need to pressure FIRST into finding someone else we can buy from in the meantime.

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

welcome to the world of real engineering!

I think most teams got one of the right 13" balls in the kit - so no matter what other 13" balls you purchase, or end up with, make sure your ball collecting mechanisms are not hyper-dependant on the characteristics of the balls

I would say inflate what you got to 13" diameter, and use the one they came in the KOP as your golden sample. If your machine can work with the KOP ball, and with whatever other 13" balls you ended up with then you will have no problem at the events.

in fact, you will probablly do better than a team that had to fine tune and tweak their machine to get it to work exactly right with one type of ball only.

The balls at the events are going to get scuffed up, partially deflated - they wont all be exactly the same size or have the same flexibility

Plan for it!

Design your bot to be 'gracefull' not finicky :c)

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

But we accidentally popped the "golden" ball!
:ahh:

I'm not worried about our robot. You're right--if our robot is that finicky, we have a bigger problem than ball size.

The problem is human players. The definite discrepency in weight and probable discrepencies in bounce, trajectory, air resistance, etc., are ones that I'm not sure human players will be able to overcome.

And this doesn't answer the question that I originally came to this thread with:
Has anyone found a more durable ball than the "new" ball? Because we've already popped two even though we've smoothed down the tops of our mobile goal PVC pipes. These stiffer ones break very easily.

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

I just contacted Level One Sports and they said that Champro (the actual manufacturer of the balls) doesn't have any more!!

Good luck finding them any time soon. :rolleyes:

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

did you measure the circumference when you inflated them? 41 inches?

we have not had any problem with them popping.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

They were inflated to the requisite 13".

Did you cap your goalposts with something? We haven't broken any since we capped our PVC goalposts.

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

It is unfortunate that teams have not been able to aquire quantities of the competition-like ball... but, there is a positive lesson here... (Aidan ducks)... in the real world of engineering, the material/object that a machine has to be built to interface with is often not available.... and when it is, specs on the object change mid/post design all the time.

The extreme example of this is evidenced in our friends Spirit and Opportunity. They had to be designed without actual Mars rocks, actual Mars gravity, actual Mars dust... etc.

So - amid your frustration - be sure and teach your team that this is not an insurmountable disaster - but a lesson in real-world engineering.

:)

Aidan (still ducking behind desk...)

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Like I said, the greatest problem isn't in engineering, it will be with the human players. Seems we've been forgotten about.

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Petey -

If you practice basketball at school with a leather bastetball, and your team shows up at some school to play - and they use rubber basketballs - can you play them competitively? Can you play flag football with a leather ball and a nerf? If you always practice with green Wilson tennis balls... and you show up to play someone who brings orange Penn balls... can you still play?

As humans we can adapt very easily and quickly. I don't see this as being a huge problem for human players (yes, on planet Utopia, all human players would practice with the right ball... but they will deal... and still do well).

:)

Aidan

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Aidan,
Because of the greater emphasis on the human player...
FIRST should have included a regulation ball in the kit of parts!


Oh wait... THEY DID!!!

JVN

;)

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

FIRST could have avoided this whole problem if they had just included a good human player in every kit... :D

Tom

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

With all due respect, your analogy is completely off.

The tennis balls you mentioned will be have the same weight and other dynamics as their counterparts.

Sure, you can play basketball with a street ball and football with a nerf ball, even if you are used to leather balls for both.

But in both cases--especially in the latter rather than the former--you will have a very hard time of it. Have you ever *thrown* a Nerf ball as compared to a real ball? They are extremely dissimilar. In fact, you can't even play the same game with them.

You can play. The question is: how well can you play? I know that our team's human players will probably come out of the S&G subgroup on our team, and we are spending 6 days a week practicing with those balls. Come competition time, we may be able to shoot with 90% accuracy. That's a darn good rate.

Now, say with those other balls--allowing for differences in weight, rebound, aerodynamics, and interaction with the robot and the goal structure itself--you drop down to (I'll be very generous) 60% accuracy. That's a 30% drop. Are you trying to tell me that there is no substantial difference between making 6 out of 10 shots and 9 out of 10 shots? That's 15 points, assuming there is no ball-capping going on.

My team leader said that human beings can adapt as well. So? I don't know about you, but I can't throw off preconditioned muscle memory that easily. There is a half pound difference between the balls. That's like the difference between a baseball and a wiffle ball.

I mean, obviously we're going to deal with it. But it doesn't make me happy that we won't be as prepared as we can be, nor does it fill me with joy that FIRST didn't do enough planning to stockpile the balls beforehand.

Sure, FIRST included a regulation ball in every KOP.
<begin sarcasm>
And that'll be just fine for performing a simulated game or for trying to figure out how many balls you can realistically shoot in 1:45, and with what accuracy. And, of course, it is really great if your team's regulation ball pops.
<end sarcasm>

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Have you ever played basketball with a men's ball all the time then once in a while change to a women's ball? Its about the same difference, and usually a good player (good human player) can adapt within 20-30 shots. You have all the practice rounds on thursday to establish yourself with this change in weight, and that should be more than enough for your human player.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

Good point. I hadn't thought about the practice sessions.

Will they let us use the balls? I wasn't doing FIRST before last year, so I don't know about any of the previous "ball" years. It would seem like FIRST would have some pretty strict rules so someone didn't get killed out there.

--Petey

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

The thing that irks me the most about this is that noone at Palos sports said anything about it ahead of time. I ordered 18 balls the Tuesday after kickoff, they didn't get shipped until Friday, I called on the following Monday to check on my order, and they didn't get delivered until Thursday. We lost 2 weeks of practice time waiting for the right balls and didn't get them - I could have just gone to Wal-mart and bought generic kickballs.

Still considering whether or not to return them and demand a refund including shipping charges - anybody else thinking about that?

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

My vote would be nay.. cut them some slack, they had to place 950 orders for prob. around 15-20 balls a piece right after the holliday season. They were probably under maned. We got our balls late, and we got the wrong ones also, but we'll deal they are still good to design around and practice with.

Re: Where to buy Balls?
 

WE STILL havn't got our balls, we have managed to find an american airbase where we know somoene who will take the delivery for us. They wont ship to anywhere outside the uk unless its american army, ie they dont have to pay tax. We have found an alternate supplier who might be willing to send them to us provided its ok with our mate in teh usaf.
You moan about losing 2 weeks we have not started yet.... and its already 3 weeks into the competition