pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

OK, just exactly how did that ball get jammed there? :confused: :eek:

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Some robot (was it 888?) kicked it. There's another picture elsewhere showing the path it took.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

The ball was kicked from the middle zone, hit the bump, and rocketed in between the pipes, where it stuck.

At least that's my "magic ball theory". :cool:

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

The wildest shot I witnessed was from our own robot.

We were playing defense in the apposing alliance's home zone. We grabbed a ball and attempted to kick it out of the zone. It must have been one of the more firmly inflated balls that day. It shot out of our bot as hard as I've ever seen it kick, bounced off one of the vertical poles on the tower and back into the opposing alliance's home zone. Then it proceeded to ricochet off the side wall and directly into the goal. We scored against our selves and the ball never touched the floor after we kicked it!

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Wow! You should have bought a lottery ticket that day :D

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Here is a good video of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un5F088PTyE#t=2m7s

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

this is kind of embarrassing... i was on that side of the field for field reset and i didn't even know that thats the way it happened... what are the chances that when 888 kicked that ball, it would get stuck like that

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

wow I'm still having a hard time believing that happened and you have visual proof!

what caused the balls to "hiccup" at the end and get stuck there? did the lodged ball kick the rails out of place?

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

From what I've heard, it seems as though it either pushed the rails apart and slowed the balls down too much or it just acted as a bump itself

It's pretty hilarious though

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

The stuck ball acted like a speed bump for returning balls. They went right over it, but were slowed down. The first ball over the stuck ball was slowed down just enough to not skip over the horizontal tower rail at the exit (I never did understand why the return track was positioned low enough to hit this horizontal rail, rather than just being high enough to go over it. That was just asking for trouble.) so it lodged there. The following balls did not have nearly enough speed to knock the first one loose, so they accumulated. There may have been some slight effect from the stuck ball pulling the rails down and changing their slope, but it was primarily the speed bump effect.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Ah makes more sense now. but the ball flying into the rail is so surreal, imagine where the ball would fly if the rail wasn't there!

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

something like this would happen?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnE0j69_gYk

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Can i just give some credit to the Curie field staff? It did seem to take a little time to figure out what was going, but their very quick reaction of throwing some more balls into the middle zone was very smoothly and quickly put together.

I know that the match was replayed, but kudos needs to be given to the field crew and Head Referee for making a tough call to try and even things out.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Hmmmm... Now this could be an effective way to stop 469

I would imagine that the ball acting as a speed bump would change the speed of the exiting ball enough that it might not work with 469's redirecting.

I'm sure this is what 888 was going for ;)

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

It was a fairly strange thing to see from in the stands!

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Very odd for this to happened! :eek:

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

I remember seeing this happen. When i was behind the driver station, I looked up to see a ball jammed in the return rack. I looked at the sight in awe, and tried to ignore it. Hehehe. That was a great match none-the-less.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

HAHA, that would have been epic in Curie match 100 if right when most of the balls were in cycle one got stuck causing them all to stop at the bottom. :D

After watching the video it seems as though if the trident player had sent the balls down faster they could have made it over the ball and onto the field. He banged the ball return a few times, but he still let the balls gently roll down the return instead of pushing them down with speed which may have allowed them to get onto the field.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

In one of our practice matches on Thursday morning, a ball our robot kicked ended up hanging in the chains in the goal until the end of the match. I'll see if we have pictures of that...

Noel

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

In Curie match 103, team 1540 somehow managed to tear the chains out of one of the goals. (The match was not replayed).

All in all, a very strange year for field malfunctions.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

I'll say.

254's Onslaught was so deadly it tore the memory foam padding out of one of their goals in a quals match at Vegas. :ahh:
http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/match/2010nv_qm56

They were shown winning in real-time scoring, but TBA has them losing the match 3-0. I guess they were red-carded? I wasn't there, I was watching the webcast.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

This would not have made a difference. The distance the ball rolls is far to long for the initial speed to make a difference. After the first balls became stuck at the end, no amount of pushing with the trident would have dislodged them.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

Yes, there is distance from the beginning to the end, but there are balls that are given extra shoves when placed on the return, and some that don't. From watching these in the stands, balls with the extra shove move faster off the end of the return than others. If the second ball had been given enough of an extra push, I could see the first ball possibly coming out, but with no guarantees. I don't think anyone would know the exact answer as this might be the first time a ball was stuck on the end. :rolleyes:

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

a) The slow ball speeds were caused by the stuck ball slowing them down mid-way, which would have happened no matter how you pushed it. b) You can only push a ball so hard without risking pushing it off the track and incurring penalties. Trident operators were trained to be careful. c) This is all a moot point because the stuck balls were not noticed by the drive team until they had already started accumulating. He banged on the rails after two balls were already accumulated, which was beyond the point of doing anything about it. d) No way of knowing what would have been allowed or penalized in the way of banging or shaking the rails. Drive teams are trained to be careful with such things. e) Probably not fair to criticize the actions of the trident operator in a fluke situation that no one has ever faced or anticipated, and that you can't really judge without experiencing it yourself.

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

That beats our driver accidentally using the high power setting at Michigan State Championship so a guy waiting around to load the robot on the next match not watching the field got hit in the upper torso area :p

Re: pic: Ball Return- Ball Stuck
 

We had that happen and West Michigan. I accidentally hit a robot into the goal and when they tried to get out the chains were tangled with them and they ripped them off. They had to disable the robot because the chains were still stuck on them. That match was not replayed either.