Durability of tetras

[XtremeEagle04]

So to revive this old thread, how do you feel the tetras held up? I know that while our team was at FLR we only broke 2 tetras, at GLR we broke 3 (taking into account that we were stacking a lot more) and at Nat's we only broke 1. I noticed that FIRST wasn't using the same color clovers as the white ones that they supplied us with. I cant help but wonder if the color that they used to dye the clovers affected how they handled stress... possibly FIRST was on to this because many of the clovers at Nat's were either white or made from a different material as the original ones, they seemed to stretch more rather than brake

Also, at GLR the tetras that broke when we stacked them were not counted toward the score for our match, shouldn't this fall under field malfunction and thus we be awarded our points? it never really mattered much with the outcome of matches, either we were ahead by enough to not have to worry about it or behind so far that it wouldn't have helped anyway..

[Kyle]

I think the tetra held up OK, it seemed like they only broke at the worst possible time like when they are placed on our bot or when they are being stacked. I helped repair the tetras at the Philly regional and most held up pretty good for the most part. The only problem was those clovers, they would break or the screws would strip inside the pole and the tetra would become loose and unplayable.

[Billfred]

I think that on the grand scale of FIRST gamepieces I've seen, they held up well.

Well, so long as you didn't do anything extreme, like drop them from player-station height or higher.

[Joe J.]

From what I saw the Tetras held up very well. Even when they did break they were at least fixable, unlike the balls last year or the bins back in 03. I hope that next years game pieces will be as durable as the Tetras.

In regards to practice tetras we tried several different cheap clover materials sheet metal was too flexible, Lexan held up but not for long, we finally ended up using some 1/8" Delrin sheet and that seems to be working well.

[Warren Boudreau]

Having worked closely with the tetras (too close) during the Florida Regional, I have to say that the tetras held up pretty well. The clovers could have been designed differently to reduce the stress on them. But, as it was pointed out to me, wouldn't you want the weakest link to be something easy to replace? It would have been much worse if the endcaps or the PVC pipes were the things that broke rather than the clovers.

[pyroslev]

During the build season, I was given the task of fixing tetras that were broken. I would fix one, put it on the station and be given another broken one.

The ones at VCU were somewhat stronger.
However, i saw very few broken tetras on Newton field. One brok cause of a tipped bot crushing it.

[David Brinza]

I served as a volunteer at the SoCal Regional this year performing tetra repair on both days of competition and was dubbed "Dr. Tetra". Woodie autographed my FIRST crew t-shirt right under the Dr. Tetra "insignia" .

FIRST had just acquired new clovers that were punched from colored poly-propylene to replace the thicker low density polyethylene clovers. On Friday, broken tetras came off of the field frequently - sometimes 2 or 3 in a single match. On Saturday, I was joined field-side by my son, Clayton - he had a blast assisting "Dr. Tetra". By time we reached the elimination round, most of the tetras had the newer clovers, which seemed much more durable. In the semifinals and finals, I think there was only one broken tetra is spite of the much more intense play.

I was surprised to see many tetras in Atlanta with the thicker polyethylene clovers, probably something only a tetra repair specialist would notice...

[Cory]

Originally Posted by David Brinza

I served as a volunteer at the SoCal Regional this year performing tetra repair on both days of competition and was dubbed "Dr. Tetra". Woodie autographed my FIRST crew t-shirt right under the Dr. Tetra "insignia" .

FIRST had just acquired new clovers that were punched from colored poly-propylene to replace the thicker low density polyethylene clovers. On Friday, broken tetras came off of the field frequently - sometimes 2 or 3 in a single match. On Saturday, I was joined field-side by my son, Clayton - he had a blast assisting "Dr. Tetra". By time we reached the elimination round, most of the tetras had the newer clovers, which seemed much more durable. In the semifinals and finals, I think there was only one broken tetra is spite of the much more intense play.

I was surprised to see many tetras in Atlanta with the thicker polyethylene clovers, probably something only a tetra repair specialist would notice...

I held the same job as you, at UTC. We had two different clover styles, the original, soft ones, and then the much harder ones. We replaced all the originals with the new ones, which worked out much better.

At SVR, I noticed that a good number of the clovers were very thin compared to the others. They also seemed to be breaking a whole lot more. There was one point where there were around 6+ tetras out of play all being repaired. I imagine the SVR field went to SoCal the next week and you got these tetras.