Anyone else break their track ball?

[daftpunk79]

a little exspensive don't you think??? maybe steel balls....

[Zyik]

Originally Posted by daftpunk79

a little exspensive don't you think??? maybe steel balls....

Trust me, my team could break them.

On the plus side, we haven't even taken ours out yet really, so it's still intact.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Zyik

Trust me, my team could break them.

On the plus side, we haven't even taken ours out yet really, so it's still intact.

You sure??? Ours had a pinhole right out of the box ... and popped soon after we filled it

I wonder what the ruling on the field will be when (not if) these things pop.

[daftpunk79]

Originally Posted by Zyik

Trust me, my team could break them.

wow...thats crazy...our team would just throw them at one certain person i wont mention....

[mbeardsworth]

The only damage we've caused to ours was when the little plastic deflation-prevention thingy vanished inside the shell somewhere. We had a nice panic session trying to find it. It took us about 20 minutes.

Then we drove it around outside on our test bot. Surprisingly we didn't break anything.

[BillB]

We may not break them, but there will be a "missing game piece" thread.

[SSMike]

Maybe you should try e-mailing FIRST about your situation. It may cost more, but they might be able to ship you a new one. No guarantees but its worth a shot.

Hope things work out and you have a good year!

--Mike

[MasterMkanik]

Originally Posted by daftpunk79

maybe steel balls....

BALLS OF STEEL!!!

[compwiz2008]

Ours came with a small rip in it that didn't puncture all the way through. We covered it with duck tape and it worked properly. Beats asking for another and waiting weeks for it to come.

[BanksKid]

Originally Posted by Drwurm

Perhaps next year we'll play with diamonds. Let's see a team break those on the first day.

for the record even though diamonds are the hardesr thing kno to man they are dy no means the strongest.....as noted in classic diamond cutting known as "cleaving" in which the diamond is cut with a cleaving knife being smacked ito it be the "Cleaver" the one doing the cutting

that said

our ball is still intact.........a few members of our team however are not............

[Blue_Mist]

We just managed to fill ours up today, and have already been close to breaking a few team members (sorry!), but our ball is completely intact. In the Kit of Parts list, there are instructions to hot glue shut part of the cloth cover. We checked and the flap indicated was already sewn shut. Anyone else with conflicting directions and game pieces? And about the swiftly deflating ball, apparently, even duct tape has limits. I think my world has just been blown apart... Good luck on finding a replacement!

[=Martin=Taylor=]

Originally Posted by Blue_Mist

We just managed to fill ours up today, and have already been close to breaking a few team members (sorry!), but our ball is completely intact. In the Kit of Parts list, there are instructions to hot glue shut part of the cloth cover. We checked and the flap indicated was already sewn shut. Anyone else with conflicting directions and game pieces? And about the swiftly deflating ball, apparently, even duct tape has limits. I think my world has just been blown apart... Good luck on finding a replacement!

No, the reference in the manual is actually to the zipper itself. The ends of the zipper are not locked together so it is possible that you could remove the zipper-assembly-handle-thingy, which would be very bad...

The CORRECT way to lock the zipper's ends are with little metal clamps that usually come with zippers, if you don't got any of those, just sew the ends together.

[techwizrd]

Originally Posted by mbeardsworth

Then we drove it around outside on our test bot. Surprisingly we didn't break anything.

Today, we were discussing possible strategies to use during the game. We all took a break and everyone was talking. Suddenly, I took out our vex bot (Vex Team 519) and we were pushing around the balls as well as carrying it around on our little vex bot. Surprisingly, our didn't break either and it was amusing to see a little vex bot pushing the massive track ball around a mock version of the field we built. This happened about five minutes after Mr. Lavery mentioned a Chief Delphi thread discussing a super speedy robot that could make 180 laps in 2 minute and commenting on the size of the robot compared to the size of the inflated trackball. Vex parts, however horrible and annoying they may be, are pretty sturdy.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Blue_Mist

In the Kit of Parts list, there are instructions to hot glue shut part of the cloth cover. We checked and the flap indicated was already sewn shut.

I'm pretty sure the hot melt is supposed to glue the plastic zipper teeth together under that flap, in order to prevent the zipper pull from coming off the end. It's not intended to do anything to the flap itself.

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by Blue_Mist

We just managed to fill ours up today, and have already been close to breaking a few team members (sorry!), but our ball is completely intact. In the Kit of Parts list, there are instructions to hot glue shut part of the cloth cover. We checked and the flap indicated was already sewn shut. Anyone else with conflicting directions and game pieces? And about the swiftly deflating ball, apparently, even duct tape has limits. I think my world has just been blown apart... Good luck on finding a replacement!

Yes, ours was like that as well. The zipper ends were already sewn together so there was no need to hot glue it.