Crushing Balls?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

If you're destroying game pieces left and right, you're doin' it wrong. There's probably a much more effective way to do the task at hand that doesn't break game pieces. Orbit Balls are pretty hardy.

I respectfully disagree. These balls are completely shoddy. They break within minutes of normal usage (ie: human players throwing them into goals). Half of them broke before they even left Walmart's shelves.

They are anything but hardy, and I would expect every robot to break at least one every match just by running into them.

If your manipulator is destroying them, that's another story, but it seems like it can be all but guaranteed there are going to be a lot of broken balls on the field at any given time.

[Jonathan Norris]

From the sounds of it FIRST is going to need a team of Orbit ball repair volunteers to keep enough balls alive. these things are going to get wrecked when robots slide into walls and there happens to be a couple balls in the way, I know we don't have any that haven't already broken.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Cory

...These balls are completely shoddy. They break within minutes of normal usage (ie: human players throwing them into goals). Half of them broke before they even left Walmart's shelves.

They are anything but hardy, and I would expect every robot to break at least one every match just by running into them.

Our experience differs. A couple of our balls started out with a separated connector, but none that I know of have broken. This is after many sessions of target practice and a few games of catch with a very young and energetic child.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Our experience differs. A couple of our balls started out with a separated connector, but none that I know of have broken. This is after many sessions of target practice and a few games of catch with a very young and energetic child.

I concur...to an extent. After we used staples and super glue to repair them after our dodgeball game, they've been great since! Now if only the shooter didn't try to rip the cloth off of them . We're working on it ...

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Our experience differs. A couple of our balls started out with a separated connector, but none that I know of have broken. This is after many sessions of target practice and a few games of catch with a very young and energetic child.

Many of ours have broken and I have found that it may depend on how they are thrown to an extent. It seems that the overhand "tomahawk" or "baseball" throw tends to break them more frequently than a basketball style shot or an underhand toss.

[amariealbrecht]

We have broken some of our orbit balls just in normal goofing around at our workspace but I am almost positive that at the competition...unless it intentional...a penalty will not be assessed for broken orbit balls...this is of course unless your robot is an orbit ball shreder and then I think you will have to fix it to make sure it is not ruining a ball everytime it touches it.
Good luck!
Alicia Albrecht
Electrical Subteam
The Robettes 2177