Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

a little exspensive don't you think??? maybe steel balls....

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

Trust me, my team could break them. :rolleyes:

On the plus side, we haven't even taken ours out yet really, so it's still intact.

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

You sure??? Ours had a pinhole right out of the box ... and popped soon after we filled it :(

I wonder what the ruling on the field will be when (not if) these things pop.

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

wow...thats crazy...our team would just throw them at one certain person i wont mention....

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

The only damage we've caused to ours was when the little plastic deflation-prevention thingy vanished inside the shell somewhere. We had a nice panic session trying to find it. It took us about 20 minutes.

Then we drove it around outside on our test bot. Surprisingly we didn't break anything.

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

We may not break them, but there will be a "missing game piece" thread.

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

Maybe you should try e-mailing FIRST about your situation. It may cost more, but they might be able to ship you a new one. No guarantees but its worth a shot.

Hope things work out and you have a good year!

--Mike

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

BALLS OF STEEL!!! :D

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

Ours came with a small rip in it that didn't puncture all the way through. We covered it with duck tape and it worked properly. Beats asking for another and waiting weeks for it to come.:)

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

for the record even though diamonds are the hardesr thing kno to man they are dy no means the strongest.....as noted in classic diamond cutting known as "cleaving" in which the diamond is cut with a cleaving knife being smacked ito it be the "Cleaver" the one doing the cutting

that said

our ball is still intact.........a few members of our team however are not............:rolleyes:

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

We just managed to fill ours up today, and have already been close to breaking a few team members (sorry!), but our ball is completely intact. In the Kit of Parts list, there are instructions to hot glue shut part of the cloth cover. We checked and the flap indicated was already sewn shut. Anyone else with conflicting directions and game pieces? And about the swiftly deflating ball, apparently, even duct tape has limits. I think my world has just been blown apart... Good luck on finding a replacement!

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

No, the reference in the manual is actually to the zipper itself. The ends of the zipper are not locked together so it is possible that you could remove the zipper-assembly-handle-thingy, which would be very bad...

The CORRECT way to lock the zipper's ends are with little metal clamps that usually come with zippers, if you don't got any of those, just sew the ends together.

Vex Bots pushing trackballs? NO WAY! O.O
 

Today, we were discussing possible strategies to use during the game. We all took a break and everyone was talking. Suddenly, I took out our vex bot (Vex Team 519) and we were pushing around the balls as well as carrying it around on our little vex bot. Surprisingly, our didn't break either and it was amusing to see a little vex bot pushing the massive track ball around a mock version of the field we built. This happened about five minutes after Mr. Lavery mentioned a Chief Delphi thread discussing a super speedy robot that could make 180 laps in 2 minute and commenting on the size of the robot compared to the size of the inflated trackball. Vex parts, however horrible and annoying they may be, are pretty sturdy.

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

I'm pretty sure the hot melt is supposed to glue the plastic zipper teeth together under that flap, in order to prevent the zipper pull from coming off the end. It's not intended to do anything to the flap itself.

Re: Anyone else break their track ball?
 

Yes, ours was like that as well. The zipper ends were already sewn together so there was no need to hot glue it.