Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

ok to make this more clear...our shooter makes it so that the balls are compressed to have more energy to fire it. the new balls are a lot firmer thus making it harder to compress then the way the old (semi-shreaded) balls do. in shorter terms...the new balls make it harder to shoot like the old balls.

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

I think most shooters are gonna do the same, I still didn't get an answer though
when you say NEW balls are you refering to a a diffrent model? or simply NEW as in production date?

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

New as in it hasn't been used much if at all.

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

new balls as in the ones that weren't shot yet through our shooter.
the nice shiney ones!

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

Wow, this makes me glad that we (arbitrarily) decided to use a shooter design that doesn't depend on compression to give the balls velocity. It's a good thing they didn't listen to me.....

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

Someone want to do me a favor a post a pic of torn up balls and new ones? I would like to say all of our balls are damage free, but how much is enough damage to change the course of the ball? My concern is our freshmen play with the balls day in and day out and i want to know if that's enough to alter their accuracy.

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

lucky for us we dont have to worry about the balls... :D

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

Chuck, Chuck, Chuck... How are we supposed to score points we don't worry about the balls. Just because we aren't launching them in the air doesn't mean we can just forget about them...

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

The difference between new and used balls is not just in appearance....the big thing that makes a difference would be the "squishiness" of the ball.

The new ones can't get compressed a lot and the old ones can get compressed a lot.

If you want to get a nice pop try shooting a ball with the plastic on(brand new). :p

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

we'll fix it in programing HAHAHAHAHA!

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

I want to chime in on this thread and say our shooter has nearly devoured our 10 balls during build season, and those balls are very furry and sticky. They get jammed and they shoot horribly. If we stick new balls in the bot they never get stuck and they shoot incredibly accurate. I hope they have lots of spares at the comps :D

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

well with our robot we have speed control on our shooter and have been training our operator with it so we can use old, worn balls(which is basically all we have) with little to no problem. I know the idea of speed control for those of u that dont have it might be a little late but u never no, just throw POT up there. :D

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

I have witnessed the described carnage and boy is it fun :p . At the scrimmage our (throwing into high goals - catapult style) bot took their confetti balls quite nicely. No problems if anyone out there used anything besides softball pitcher wheel style... (if anyone has please let me know, I want to hear about this!).

We actually had a slightly harder time throwing the fresh balls as they tended to stick on the track while the ones missing the rubber coating slid through easy. Not a huge diffrence, but enough to give it 1 MPH-ish more speed.

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

That brings up the interesting question of whether or not teams will be penalized for destroying balls. I'm sure that once a ball begins to obstruct game play, a FIRST official will switch in a new ball. Refering to my previous question, how would the refs know which robot killed which ball?

Re: new balls vs. old used up balls
 

Our robot has a a softball shooter, and we have no problem shooting our torn up balls. We have our wheels set to 5 inches so that the shooter wheels can compress the ball and launch it out. Since its being compressed, small holes or rips is no problem. The ball that we got in the kit now looks like the moon. There are are giant craters in it (I mean 1 inch deep) and there is no covering on the ball at all, and our shooter still spits it out like the day we got it.