pic: Ball of destroyedness.. yea

[Sachiel7]

I think the problem is alot of teams this year are putting extended traction on their shooting "wheels" or whatever they use to launch, when it's not really needed. Said traction plus compression of the balls tears off the face.

Not to be picky, but personally our shooter has yet to nick a ball. We're using the 6" skyway wheelchair wheels for our launcher.
I think it may become an issue at competition if lots of teams are shredding up balls, thus making it difficult for those who have designed theirs not to tear up balls to actually fire them.
This would fall under rules against game/field object destruction, and would be an issue because it inhibits other robots from being able to use the game objects as intended.

So, I encourage those teams having issues tearing up the balls to figure out why (is it really necessary to have alot of traction?) and try and come up with a more ball-friendly solution before competition rolls around.
Foam Balls are our friends!!!