Competition Orbit Balls

[ChuckDickerson]

At the beginning of the season there was lots of talk about how fragile the orbit balls are and that they were coming apart too easily. If the photos of the bags and bags of orbit balls are a true indication it would appear that FIRST is well stocked with orbit balls for the competitions. How are the orbit balls really holding up at the competitions and are they being “generously replaced” or are the field personnel waiting until the orbit balls are pretty well destroyed before being taken out of play and replaced?

Secondly, how well stocked are the practice fields with orbit balls? Our team has a fairly decent supply of orbit balls. There aren’t many teams in our area and there are plenty of Wal-Marts that at least had a few here and there. I think we collected between 40 and 50 orbit balls total. We saved about half of them for later use as ours became broken and worn out and only practiced with the other half. All of our balls that we have been practicing with have at least one broken band but none are in terrible shape. All of the other half are still in new condition. Should we plan to bring our good balls to competition to “donate” to the practice field? As the weeks go by we would assume the number of broken orbit balls will continue to eat into FIRST’s supply. Is it safe to assume the there will still be plenty even for the practice fields?

[nahstobor]

At the New Jersey regional it seemed that they continually replaced balls if they were broken. I personally loaded my teams robot and every time I went to the tote of balls none of them were damaged except for one but when I handed it to a field volunteer he kindly replaced it for a new one.

[thefro526]

I was at NJ too and on Thursday and Friday I didn't see many broken balls. I load our robot every match with 7 and I think I saw one ball the entire weekend that had been repaired. (IIRC it had tape over the seam).

Really, I think the orbit balls are holding up way better than most people thought. There's so many on the field that the abuse is spread out (most teams practiced with <5 balls) and also the Human Players aren't abusing them as much either.

[Andrew Bates]

In the manual that is given to the FTA it shows how to repair the orbit balls. Basically they have plastic splints that they place over the cracked rib and then they rivet those on. I don't know how often they do this but they do have a method.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by corpralchee

In the manual that is given to the FTA it shows how to repair the orbit balls. Basically they have plastic splints that they place over the cracked rib and then they rivet those on. I don't know how often they do this but they do have a method.

http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...l%20Repair.pdf

[JudyVandy]

From what I've seen, at some events they are being repaired, and at others, they are not being repaired. (What happens to the broken ones, I don't know.)

[smurfgirl]

I was at the Boston Regional doing field repair/reset, and we did check the balls as we reset the field after every match, and replaced the broken ones with new ones. If one of the strips of the ball had snapped and was poking out of the fabric, it came off the field. If all the strips were connected and round but the fabric was slightly torn, or it had grease spots on it, it stayed on the field because it was still perfectly functional. We found one ball covered in blood (who knew robots could bleed?) which came off the field because it wasn't sanitary... I think you'll find that people will use common sense, and the balls will all be in pretty good condition.

[JimWright949]

I was repairing the orbit balls at Portland. Out of all the balls that were used only about 20-25 broke all week-end long. We repaired the balls that only had one broken rib at the rib connector and put those back into play. Any compound fractures (two or more ribs by the time it was pulled from the field), or ribs that would leave sharp points sticking out we did not repair.

By the way, for the repair people in the following regionals the official repair guide is really tough on your hands. My change was to cut the fabric seam, expose the plastic rib for about 2 inches and then with a drill on a block of wood drill the two holes (1/4 inch drill bit) per rib side and then use the hole punch to line up the black splint to the four holes. Rivet the rib back and pull the fabric back over the rivets as best as you can.

-Jim

[ChuckDickerson]

Thanks for all the input on the real field balls. Sounds like the balls aren't breaking as bad as teams were worried about in the beginning and the few that are are being replaced quickly.

What about the practice fields? Are plenty of balls supplied for those or are teams having to share just a few? Are the broken real field casts off being taken to the practice fields or are the practice field balls in good shape?

[cdennisxlx2]

In San Diego we had only about one whole bag of broken balls at the end of Saturday that couldn't be repaired. We still had bags with new ones at the end that was allocated to us that we didn't use. We didn't actually have to repair a whole lot of balls, there were probably half a bag or so that were repaired. Me and our FTA were pleasantly surprised. I think most of the balls that broke were in the finals.

All the broken balls get loaded back on the truck to FIRST, im sure they will recycle them or something.

[OScubed]

At FLR we were asked to bring our own practice orbit balls, which we did. It was handy to have them in the pits anyway to cycle them through our upper mechanism for testing. I'd plan to bring some LABELLED balls with me to an event.

Cheers,

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by smurfgirl

We found one ball covered in blood (who knew robots could bleed?) which came off the field because it wasn't sanitary...

Blood?!!?!? Wow. That's odd.
Are you sure it wasn't Loctite or something else that robots can actually bleed?? lol

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by cdennisxlx2

All the broken balls get loaded back on the truck to FIRST, im sure they will recycle them or something.

At the end of each event, the excess Orbit Balls are fed to the FTAs. FTAs will eat anything.

-dave




.

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by dlavery

At the end of each event, the excess Orbit Balls are fed to the FTAs. FTAs will eat anything.

-dave




.

Mmmmm.... orbit ballz...

FTAs will eat anything because they so rarely have time to eat.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Blood?!!?!? Wow. That's odd.
Are you sure it wasn't Loctite or something else that robots can actually bleed?? lol

No I believe someone had cut their hand on something and subsequently handled the ball after the match.