[David Brinza]

A couple of parents from Team 980 with LOTS of manufacturing experience have come up with an alternative solution to the game piece shortage. They've spend a couple of weeks looking for the lowest cost approach to getting more balls to the teams. They've contacted Blip and determined that the delivery time and minimum order quantity was not going to work.

The plan is to sell Lunacy game ball kits to teams, perhaps as soon as this weekend. The kits include pre-sown fabric tubes (essentially identical as that used in the Orbit balls with no batting as found in the GUS ball), pre-cut lexan strips (far more durable than the plastic in the Orbit ball), high-strength adhesive patches to bond the strips together and instructions for assembly. To simplify and reduce cost of shipping and handling, only kits of 20 - 25 balls will be shipped via Priority Mail box to teams. The cost per ball will be on the order of $10 to $11 each (still working this number, however, there won't be much margin in this cost). Lunacy game ball sales will be done through a special web-site using Paypal.

We will post a new thread on CD in the next day or so announcing when the web-site is going up and sales will commence. Based on initial response, the quantity of kits manufactured can be increased pretty quickly.

What do you think about this approach?