How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

We were curious ... so here is the results of our little test:

This is 86 balls, and we could probably add some more ...

How about that?

p.s. It makes driving the robot very interesting ...

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

How did you find 86 Orbit Balls? And wow thats a lot of Orbit balls on one trailer.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

I'm hoping these balls were pooled from other teams. Otherwise you've seriously deprived nearby teams from acquiring more balls...

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

86? Nice work. How many were actually easy to put in, though? I looks like they're literally speared over the uprights, which would probably be pretty hard without going outside the bumper perimeter.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

That's exactly what I want to know... we had a really hard time trying to find one Orbit Balls

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

It looks like you could hold a lot more than 86 if you were able to stack them on top. Just saying

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Wow, that is a lot, especially considering all of the other teams that need them.

how much did all of those weigh? And, how interesting in the driving?

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

We build a full sized practice field each year completely at our own expense for all teams in the region to use, hence the large quantity. This years field is particularly expensive (over 3X our planned budget) and the kids are having to make a lot of sacrifices to make this available for all of the other teams.

How did we get so many? We have a VERY enthusiastic group of families and not many teams in northeast or Central Georgia ... Simply went there and dug through a LOT of bins. The Walmart folks were very helpful when they found out what we were doing.

Weight: We weighed a sample: 35 balls weighs 17.5 lbs.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Actually, we have done a fair amount of driving with the trailer while throwing balls and were surprised to find that a LARGE number of balls ended up on the poles. We also had a number of balls simply get stuck BETWEEN the poles due to the pole and ball flexibility.

The picture is contrived, of course. The kids were just fooling around ...

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

That explains the outrageous number of balls in that trailer. ;)

It is very nice of your team to provide a full size field for everyones use, that is something that my team would love to have the opportunity to use.

Can you go for 100 balls? :)

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Gotcha,

So 43 pounds for all of them. (granted this would be hard to do in a match)
.5lbs/ball

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

My team was wondering, Does the trailer's mass once full of balls influence the driving capabilities of the robot?

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Driving doesn't change too much.

Stopping does.

Kinda like the energizer bunny - it keeps going .. and going .. and going ...

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

thanks for the info ppl
interesting though:cool: :yikes:

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Hmm, Dean Kamen and co. probably knew all about how it would get harder and harder to stop as the match went on...

Good way to build excitement throughout the match.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

thanks for the info.
that is intresting to know.
lets hope this doesn't happen to anyone ;)

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Is the robot permited to pick up balls from the floor and then launch em again? You know, kike reusing them. If a ball is on the floor and we pick it up without touching the floor does it count as a penalty, is it permited?:confused:

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

I expect that strategy to be used by many teams this year. The GDC has even said that your robot can touch the floor as long as it doesn't provide extra traction.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

That's awesome. I can only hope to see a trailer running around that full. :)

Quick question. About how much did the field cost?

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Im not quite sure what your trying to say, but the answer to the question i think your asking is yes, you are allowed to use any balls on the ground, at any time in the match, even if they were used once already. If they are on the ground, they are anybody's balls, even the super cells.

Hope that helps

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

my question is how to prevent my teams trailer from looking like that.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Move and your robot probaly wont. I'd be extreamly suprised if it did when you were moving the whole time.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Simple. You get on your knees and pray with all your will that the other alliance doesn't have a monstrous robot and Michael Jordon.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

But you know that in the real game nobody will be able to put 86 balls in the trailer. How many you think you will be able to put?

(sorry about the english...:P)

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

I wonder if there's a Guinness World Record for something like that...

Anyway, 1197 did a more "realistic" test with our trailer and we came up with 25 balls (23 in and above the trailer and 2 through the pipes).

There is a +/- 3 ball margin of error. Therefore, a trailer should hold a maximum of 22-28 balls depending on how they settle during the match.

Does that sound reasonable?

EDIT: Also, props to the guy that's wearing the shirt.woot shirt. You have good taste in ... err ... shirts.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

It sounds a lot more like match circumstances, for sure.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

We've budgeted $3500 for all of the balls, FRP, 6 Trailers, 4-5 dummy robots, Fueling stations and misc. items (outpost, etc).

We are working on a donation of the FRP which will help a lot ...

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

We did the same test and got the same answer. I really think we will see trailers with 20-25 balls in them (hopefully not ours ...)

We have also found that a rather large percentage end up hanging on the rails. After throwing 20 balls at the trailer, we often find 4-5 hung on the rails.

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

Wow. That is more than we thought could make it in. Our team was thinking a few over 19 ish. Many of us were only thinking INSIDE the trailer. I know I wasn't really thinking about the balls getting onto the poles....That's amazing tho. Thanks for answering my question about how many could realistically make it in/on our trailer!!

Re: How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???
 

When we were playing with our trailer the other day and I figured that realistically most trailers on average won't be filled beyond 15 balls this year in most matches. That being said I don't think it'll be uncommon to see a trailer get filled with 20-25 balls assuming some a impaled and the rungs on the outside. We'll probably see at least one or two rare cases where a trailer will be filled beyond 25 but it's going to be more luck based than skill based.