Re: Source for Orbit Ball
 

My local walmart had about 20 in stock I bought seven. They had the green & purple and orange & purple. Still looking for an orange & blue.

I'm in the Central florida area.

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Walmart is everyones best bet.
We bought a few but the material is already coming off.
I think this may be a problem

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I've got to say, this is a pretty big faux pas on behalf of FIRST.

Re: Source for Orbit Ball
 

i gave the guy the bar code number for it and he tells me that he got nothing, maybe i showed up to early in the morning and he didnt want to bother with me. tell your math teacher Ms Fanelli that i said hi!!!!:)

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Called Blip. Looks like they are still manufacturing the balls. Walmart might be discontinuing the item at some stores. Didn't ask about directly ordering them though.

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After dozens of phone calls and many miles searching various Walmart's in PA, I finally called Blip. According to their representative, they do not sell to the public (ugh:ahh: ) and the only store that will carry them is Walmart.

Good Luck teams!!!!!:rolleyes:

Re: Source for Orbit Ball
 

Called Blip. The lady sounded tired. She said that FIRST will have something up on their website within the next 24 hours. Your guess is as good as mine as to what that means.

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Probably has to do with the thousand or so voicemails she got over the weekend. :ahh:

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I had the same problem. The manager I talked to gave me the upc code for it, but when I had another associate look for the ball, it didn't even come up on their computer, and when it rang-up at the register it was rung-up as a play ball...

Re: Source for Orbit Ball
 

Probably has to do with the, how many teams are there, like 2900 or so teams all calling her for the same reason: How do I get about ten to fifteen balls. She was probably more than tired, she has probably already fried about three coffee makers... I feel bad for her, that company has probably had more complaints in the past 72 hours that they have had ever since they opened...

Re: Source for Orbit Ball
 

Once again I call on FIRST: BAD FORM!

You did this with those stupid exercise balls last season. If you have a sourced product PUT THESE AGREEMENTS IN PLACE FIRST and then negotiate source purchase methods.

Do they not realize what happens each time they do this?

All of our area (as far as I can tell) has been bought out by one team. From a note I received they seem rather pleased by the fact that they cleaned out all the local WalMarts of balls.

Gracious professionalism at its best.

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I don't believe FIRST knew about this issue until right before kick off and didn't have time to react to the news that they were discontinued.

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this is a shot in the dark but:
can anyone who baught the orbit ball at your walmart take a very detailed picture of the UPC barcode, cropped out to fill the entire screen so i could download it to my iphone and just scan it when i travel over a million miles across the east coast looking for this thing? i know it comes in a box.

Love Team 354 Mentor. : )

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Someone did post pictures of the box earlier.

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If that's the case, (and I'm willing to believe that it is, if only for granting FIRST the benefit of the doubt) then I'm sure they will be calling the supplier of next year's game item AHEAD OF TIME like they should do with everything (we need) to be sure it's available.
At least every team got one of each though, I will give them that.
Why they say 2009 on them, when they are supposedly discontinued at the end of 2008 is the real mystery.

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I don't know if this could help but I found a list of walmart distribution centers.

http://www.algulfcoastvideo.com/Walmart1.htm

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:] umm err hem ahh ehh

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Define "right before." I talked to someone from GDC at kickoff and they knew about it. My guess is that FIRST has known for at least a week but has been trying to figure out a way to fix it without alerting people to the nature of the balls.

This is something that happens with FIRST routinely. Remember all the fuss in 2003 about the storage bins? And then how hilariously overstocked WalMart was with bins in 2004, and how furious they got?

FIRST needs to take over the wholesale redistributing of their game pieces. Obviously this has a lot of attendant problems and is not the most efficient way to run things. However, it A) keeps stuff like this from happening, B) is the only thing that will work if FIRST truly grows to varsity level, and C) would be in keeping with Dean's message about positive social change to keep people from patronizing WalMart (but that's getting political...)

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I do somewhat agree, but FIRST probably needs to consider the possibility of leaks.

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We finally tracked down some orbit balls.
Called 5 Wal-marts 6 Toys R us and some Targets and finally tracked down three at a Wal-mart close by. We bought them even though they were all broken. Then we called some more and found another Wal-mart that had five in stock and so purchased them. they appear to be unbroken.
So my suggestion is call stores first then go look for yourself.
Also Toys R us and Target in our area said they never carried them.

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Haha, the only balls I could find were hidden and mislabeled in the back storage of a WalMart 80 miles north of me in the mountains.

What a debacle.

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http://www.logoloc.com/first/

top right corner of webpage

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The first clue was a moon fish.

The leak would have been "FIRST announces commitment to buy 28000 POOF Orbit balls".

We already had a 50/50 bet that it would be something to do with balls this year. That would have narrowed it down the manipulation to do something with a ton of holes in it.

Either way: I'll say it again- Give me the opportunity to 'pre-buy' game pieces, tell me how many, don't tell me what they are, and let me give you a CC to ship them out. I'll spend an extra 100$ if it means I don't have to waste 3 hours calling and driving all over God's Country to find something that was made in China and sold at our local WalMart.

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Team 2102 has managed to obtain 18 so far target seems to have them but they are never on the selves walmart can't keep track of there items and i refuse to go to anymore walmarts. we wenty to a total of 10 just to find the ones we did.
*gets down on his knees and thanks the gods for the "Wild Time Orbit Balls" they found*

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i knew first was going to be working on this... btw umm karen in canada seems to be doing a bulk order i guess when they are available. I just got my teacher to make a call to her and see wether or not we can get them from her... cus nowhere down here in toronto has them so far...

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To all First competitors,

I would like to take this opportunity to clarify many of the rumors regarding the Blip Toys Orbit Ball. At this time Blip Toys does not have any stock of the Orbit Ball to sell to competitors directly. First has purchased extra units for the competition and has informed us additional balls we will be sold via their website in the next 24 hours. To date Walmart has been the only retailer to carry the Orbit Ball and has elected to not purchase the ball for the upcoming spring season. All remaining orbit balls through Walmart are available in their stores and are being sold on clearance. They were not offered by Walmart via their website or in any other countries. Our analysis shows around 14,000 pieces throughout their stores across the U.S.

Customer Service
Blip Toys

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After searching about 4 walmarts, 2 targets and a toys r us, we found 3. Between 1468 and 353 there are now 5 orbit balls. After calling Blip and FIRST this is what we've found out. Blip is not selling them to stores right now to stock up for FIRST. If you check out the FIRST e-mail blast it mentions a Q&A on wednesday at noon. THAT is where the info will be released on how to get these balls. FIRST will be selling them and it will be possible to get more than the 2-3 many of us have been finding. :D

Source for Orbit Ball, WallMart SKU
 

I found one at a local WallMart....

Manager did a SKU check and found me a bunch at a few other local stores...

SKU is 6583 8282 040 call customer service and ask them to do a check...

A lot of them were broken on the shelf, got them for $5 each...


tom lafleur
mentor team 812

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This shows that maybe with FIRST expanding into more countries the game designers need to check that playing pieces / field parts are available in all competing countries.

We don't have Walmarts in New Zealand. Also a google search failed to show anyone in NZ selling the field material. There maybe an equivalent but it will take a lot of time to find a suitable one.

So maybe in the future once the GDC have worked out what is needed for the field and pieces they could contact a FIRST rep in each country to confirm the item or exact equivalent is available. So on kickoff day a list of all equivalent parts are in the manual. The FIRST rep would have to be signed to a confidentiality clause.

How are the teams in Israel / England / Germany doing at getting the field floor and game ball?

Some years depending on the game it might not be so critical but the field for this year definitely is.

Any thoughts?

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Make your own game pieces (white paper comming soon in another thread)

drive on some slick plastic that you have in your bathrooms or commercial kitchens or any other slick surface

other then that good luck,

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I feel for you. I sense that this problem has been consistently overlooked in the past few years.

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Well, we have multiple problems this year.

1. The crater flooring is a problem. if we would have gotten a sample in the kit we would know if we have anything compatible here, but we didn't.
   (just got off the phone with our regional director, she ordered a sample and will find a solution for the Israeli teams <-- she's awesome if you didn't notice :) )
2. Orbit balls are a problem. the poof balls were available for purchase online in 2006 so that the shipping was a killer, but at least we had balls. we're looking into where to get these as well, because we don't think FIRST is going around wallmarts and buying up 5 or 6 at a time for the regionals.
3. Bimba cylinders were also a problem, but our regional director solved that a long time ago: she contacted bimba and made sure that they pool all the israeli orders and ship them once a week. she takes care of customs and distributing to the teams. (did I mention she's awesome?)
4. Any team can do an AndyMark order on their own if they want to, but again shipping and customs are a hassle and time wasters. we pool andymark orders twice a week and Alisha (our regional director) takes care of that as well.
5. In the past IFI orders were also pooled.
6. Also FIRST has special rules in place for international teams which in general state that if you can not get the exact part which is allowed in the KOP you are allowed an identical part from a different manufacturer. I think this mostly applies to pneumatic cylinders which have the same dimensions across multiple manufacturers, and yet teams are restricted to bimba cylinders.

It isn't as easy as it is in the states - but we don't do this stuff because it's easy...

That's all I can think of at the moment. let me know if there is something else you had in mind.

-Leav

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After searching all the major toy shops in London and outside, we have found nothing.:mad: We're getting some shipped over from the states by our former mentor and we will be buying from FIRSt when it is available. For the flooring, we've order some PTFE sheets as it's the closest thing we could find. We're gonna wrap some old wheels with teflon tape as our KOP has not arrived yet.:mad:

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I'm just wondering if melamine sheets would be close to what the surface is like? or is that what people are meaning when they say the stuff on the walls in bathrooms? if so there seems to be plenty of suppliers in New Zealand selling the stuff. Also yea by the looks of it we can easily make the balls out of polycarbonate and access to a table saw which I'm sure everyone here will be able to get access to. (i already have a stockpile of polycarbonate that will be perfect for making the balls lying around at home) :)

Tim

Re: Source for Orbit Ball
 

FYI, if you're referring to the "2009 Game Kits" link, then you are mistaken, since that is for the FTC competition, not FRC.
I'm sure when Orbit balls are available, they will have a nice big Orbit ball picture on the main page with a link to how to get them.

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I think he is refering to the coming soon sign that says orbit balls coming soon.

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If you can find a walmart that still has orbit balls then you're clearly not recruiting hard enough

;)

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Melamine might do it but without exact specs you won't know. I think it also is maybe a more heavy duty one like you see making the walls in food processing plants maybe takeaways. The trouble is unless a sheet of it has been shipped to NZ you can't go and do a touch test for comparison.

I doubt many teams have a stockpile of polycarbonate.

Where did you get yours from? Do you have the size dimensions etc please?

Part of my original post is also on the time spent on having to try and find the field, make the orbit balls. This takes away from actual robot design / construction. Then in the 2009 case if the practice field you have isn't exactly right, when your drivers get to regionals they will have to learn to drive all over again. Depending on the difference of the coeffecient of friction.

See you at the next Vex comp.

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Well after 3 hours of searching I've come up with 13 balls, 8 Moon Rocks, 3 Empty Cells, and 2 Super Cells.

Being in Tallahassee I was able to search 4 walmarts without worrying about other teams scarfing them up since the nearest team is 2 hours away. I went to a Target, K-Mart, and Toys-R-Us and got none... I shall mail them to my team tomorrow.

We're probabilly all driving Walmart crazy because they are going to think these are a hot selling item and stock up on them and once build is over nobody will want these things. :D

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Does anyone know the name of the fabric that is used in the Orbit Ball?

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Spandex

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Makes you yearn for the days when the game object could be made out of PVC pipe, doesn't it?

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Yes, but even then they somtimes used fittings etc. that were not always available west of the Mississippi. I remember searching all over LA for a certain pipe fitting back in 2002.