Ball Bursting

[lamphere 255]

Has the subject of bursting the yellow balls come up? This seems to be a topic that should be discussed with 3 or 4 being broken last tourney. As with the traction, and not tearing up the carpet, shouldn't a machine be designed so that it doesn't destroy ANY components of the game? What happens to our ability to score if balls burst and there are none to replace them? Should a team at least be warned or worse Dqed if they break the balls?

Mr. H.-Lamphere 255

[Mr. Mac]

We try to check for likely problems at inspection. Whenever a ball is burst, the refs pull the responsible team aside and tell them to look for the cause and fix it; an OCCRA official assists them if they need it. The team is warned that if the problem is not fixed and it happens again, they will be disqualified and not allowed to compete until it is fixed to our satisfaction. Although we now have replacement balls, we do not want machines lowering match scores.

[Servo888]

Yes; every team should test their bots to make sure they don't burst any balls. But at the two tourn'ies I've been at I don't think there were any problems with balls bursting. Only the placebo did damage to the big green ball :-). Oh well.

[Mr. Mac]

Only two balls have been burst (to my knowledge) and they were both by the same team in a single match. We believe that the problem has been corrected.

[roeperJTD06]

that was pritty funny that they tell everyone to file down their edges, and the plasiebo bot that pops the first ball.

[OakTownAsian]

When you Pop a ball you should get DQ. Some body in our last competition pop 2-3 balls at the same time. You have to inforce the ball bursting issue.

[Mike Martus]

Other than a machine damanging two items, they were warned and then re-inspected all other damageg game pieces were from robots climbing on them. They were trapped under the robot as the pushing and shoving took place. The game pieces cannot support 120 pounds in a small pressure point area.

This is considered a hazard of the game.

The ref's are watching.