Soccer Ball Sold Out

[dtengineering]

I'll begin this with my standard preface that I've got a lot of respect for the GDC and the job they do, and the people at FIRST HQ for growing FIRST in a time of restraint. It looks like they've created a good game this year, and by and large I strongly approve of the job they do.

BUT... if it is indeed the case that the soccer balls are now sold out, this is entirely inexcusable. Last year... the first time... was a forgivable mistake. But to source game pieces made of unobtainium for two years in a row is unacceptable.

They didn't need to contact DTI and say "We're FIRST robotics and want to use your pieces in a top secret game", they merely needed to ask, "Are you capable of supplying several thousand HS300 soccer balls in January?" (Perhaps this was asked... I don't know...)

If not... on to the next supplier.

This lack of game pieces is particularly egregious as I tried to order two soccer balls on Sunday, but couldn't because I'M FROM CANADA. DTI's website offers no option other than to be from the United States. So I tried phoning their 1-800 number this week... but the 1-800 number... the only prominent phone number on their site is "NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR AREA".

So now I've e-mailed them, but so far my only response has been an automated message asking me to confirm that the message I sent wasn't spam.

So based on my experience, and what I read here, it was IMPOSSIBLE for a team outside the USA to purchase a regulation soccer ball unless they placed a phone order on Saturday afternoon. Sounds like we're in good company with many American teams... but hey... at least you guys had a chance!

Yeah... we can buy soccer balls in Canada (on the shelf, under the hockey pucks)... and if we had ONE... just ONE of the originals, we could probably find a pretty close match in terms of surface and stitching.

But we don't, and... from the sounds of it won't... get our hands on one of the game pieces until March 25.

It might not make a difference, and I know FIRST did everything they could to come through for us last year with the moon rocks... and they might be able to pull something off this year.... but really... how cheap are they getting at FRC headquarters to leave an important $10 piece out of a KoP that costs several thousand dollars?

Sheesh...

Like I say, I like the game, and if FIRST did check for availability and DTI lied to them, then my apologies. But I make no apologies for saying this wouldn't even be perceived as a problem if they'd put just ONE regulation ball in every KoP. I'd happily trade the KoP wheels... especially the rather useless slick ones... for one regulation soccer ball.

Jason

[indieFan]

Wait a second. You all mean to tell me that you expect to have a specific soccer ball available to you?

Isn't this just another part of the engineering problem? At my company, we have to begin building things before we have everything in house due to contract issues. We have to begin building things before we have test benches set up. We are a development area, so we're constantly looking for the right material for the right job.

And, in my opinion, if you are designing for a single specific soccer ball, you are being too narrow minded in your design. The manual even states that the "...color and surface may vary." Are you going to deflate your ball to various pressures during testing? Are you going to scuff parts of the ball up during testing? While you could, you probably won't.

Just expand your design to cover a range of possibilities and you'll be fine. If required, test one of the smooth, rubber, non-stitched soccer balls like the ones used in Phys. Ed. and one that is a quality competition, stitched soccer ball. If both work, you're design is robust enough to handle any type of soccer ball thrown at it.

Otherwise, good luck finding one in an auction on ebay or through nextag.

indieFan

[Thermal]

Originally Posted by indieFan

Wait a second. You all mean to tell me that you expect to have a specific soccer ball available to you?

Isn't this just another part of the engineering problem? At my company, we have to begin building things before we have everything in house due to contract issues. We have to begin building things before we have test benches set up. We are a development area, so we're constantly looking for the right material for the right job.

And, in my opinion, if you are designing for a single specific soccer ball, you are being too narrow minded in your design. The manual even states that the "...color and surface may vary." Are you going to deflate your ball to various pressures during testing? Are you going to scuff parts of the ball up during testing? While you could, you probably won't.

Just expand your design to cover a range of possibilities and you'll be fine. If required, test one of the smooth, rubber, non-stitched soccer balls like the ones used in Phys. Ed. and one that is a quality competition, stitched soccer ball. If both work, you're design is robust enough to handle any type of soccer ball thrown at it.

Otherwise, good luck finding one in an auction on ebay or through nextag.

indieFan

The issue is with the camera system, a camera can have trouble picking up different colors or reflection patterns

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by indieFan

Wait a second. You all mean to tell me that you expect to have a specific soccer ball available to you?

Isn't this just another part of the engineering problem? At my company, we have to begin building things before we have everything in house due to contract issues. We have to begin building things before we have test benches set up. We are a development area, so we're constantly looking for the right material for the right job.

And, in my opinion, if you are designing for a single specific soccer ball, you are being too narrow minded in your design. The manual even states that the "...color and surface may vary." Are you going to deflate your ball to various pressures during testing? Are you going to scuff parts of the ball up during testing? While you could, you probably won't.

Just expand your design to cover a range of possibilities and you'll be fine. If required, test one of the smooth, rubber, non-stitched soccer balls like the ones used in Phys. Ed. and one that is a quality competition, stitched soccer ball. If both work, you're design is robust enough to handle any type of soccer ball thrown at it.

Otherwise, good luck finding one in an auction on ebay or through nextag.

indieFan

I think you're missing the point.

I look at it like ordering car parts. Nothing better than genuine.
Also, the fact that some teams got it and others have a close imitation (or not) is a problem.
I'm sure everyone involved at FIRST try their best to avoid possible issues during build season, but still, the issue should've been addressed to avoid the same thing happening in back to back years.

[Fred Sayre]

Hopefully someone who has the exact ball can compare it to some more widely available balls and post to let everyone know. Our team asked all of the kids to bring one from home and we are testing with all of them until we get a chance at a regulation one. So far there has been quite a bit of performance difference between balls, and getting the right pressure is pretty important.

[MrForbes]

I visited Walmart today and looked at the soccer balls, the white Mitre Cup Final ball seems to have a finish similar to the spec ball. Much closer than the less expensive Wilson ball I bought there.

I did not do any measuring....sorry.....

[TD912]

FYI, it appears they are back in stock:
http://dtisoccer.com/store/index.php...d&productId=17

No more Out Of Stock/Sold Out message!

[MrWibbles]

w00t, more soccer balls!

Is the "White" color the same as "Pearl White" ?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by indieFan

Wait a second. You all mean to tell me that you expect to have a specific soccer ball available to you?

Isn't this just another part of the engineering problem?

Let's run with that question: is it supposed to be part of the engineering problem? If that was the idea, why wouldn't FIRST have just said so in the manual, instead of risking the wrath of the teams (again)? Also, FIRST rightly goes to a lot of trouble to publish specifics about the rest of the field—what indication do we have that they intended to make the balls' characteristics difficult to ascertain (by choosing a supplier with limited stock)? And if it was intentional, it would make for a ridiculous policy—isn't the whole point of using soccer balls to take advantage of their ubiquity? (You stand a very good chance of finding a substitute provided that you can get one of the official balls as a basis for comparison.)

Originally Posted by indieFan

And, in my opinion, if you are designing for a single specific soccer ball, you are being too narrow minded in your design. The manual even states that the "...color and surface may vary." Are you going to deflate your ball to various pressures during testing? Are you going to scuff parts of the ball up during testing? While you could, you probably won't.

Just expand your design to cover a range of possibilities and you'll be fine. If required, test one of the smooth, rubber, non-stitched soccer balls like the ones used in Phys. Ed. and one that is a quality competition, stitched soccer ball. If both work, you're design is robust enough to handle any type of soccer ball thrown at it.

What's the point of testing with vastly dissimilar materials? On the playing field, you're just as likely to encounter a bowling ball as a one-piece rubber soccer ball. Can you even be sure that any of the data you collect with a rubber ball is useful?

If all you've got are balls of the wrong type, then feel free to make use of them, fully cognizant of their limitations—but the whole point of this exercise is to find the ones that FIRST specified, in order to optimize the design for real-world operation.

And yes, real-world operation certainly involves scuffed, dirty and/or semi-inflated balls. I would definitely expect to see some of those on the real field, so if I was interested in my design's performance under those conditions, of course I would test them. (Although, for some designs, it might be sufficient to presume that it just won't work for those balls, and ignore the problem.)

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by indieFan

Wait a second. You all mean to tell me that you expect to have a specific soccer ball available to you?

Yes... if a specific soccer ball is defined in the rules and was available to other teams, then it should be available to my team. Check out the rules of the game surrounding what defines a vendor, and a COTS part and it would be reasonable to assume that FIRST would follow their own rules in regard to game pieces.

I don't know whether having access to an HS300 would make our team more competitive or not, but I do know that covering up for a repeated lack of foresight on behalf of the game designers -- who otherwise appear to have done an excellent job this year, as usual -- is not what I define as "part of the engineering challenge". If it were intended to be part of the engineering challenge, then NO ONE should have had access to the offical game piece. I'm not quite sure why guessing at what the real ball might be like should be an interesting engineering challenge for my team, but not for other teams.

And yes, I was planning on buying two balls and testing them at the different circumferences as specified in the game manual, and I can guarantee that surface scuffing will occur during testing. I try to teach the students to be thorough, and account for and control that which can be accounted for and controlled.

Like I say... I don't know that having some teams have access to the official ball while most others do not will be of any real advantage, but I do know that having one of the balls is obviously perceived as an advantage by many, many teams. That's why the part spec was put in the manual, and thats why they're all gone!

I also know that this problem could have been solved by putting one, ten dollar soccer ball into each KoP. Given the orbit ball fiasco from last year, I am surprised to see the same problem showing up again.

Can we work around it? Yeah... Will it be a big deal when the season is all over? Probably not. Am I going to roll up in a coma for the next six weeks muttering "HS300... HS300...", no. Is this a good game regardless of which soccer ball we use... yeah. But could this whole "sold out" mess and perception of inequity (if not actual inequity) have been avoided?

You bet.

Jason

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

But I make no apologies for saying this wouldn't even be perceived as a problem if they'd put just ONE regulation ball in every KoP. I'd happily trade the KoP wheels... especially the rather useless slick ones... for one regulation soccer ball.

Jason

Jason, I couldn't agree more. How do we make the best possible design we can, without having any reference whatsoever as to the specifics of the game piece we are playing with. It is not in the kit, it is not in any store, and now, we cannot even get one, even just ONE! And how do we know that this HS500 ball is really the same, without ever having seen an HS300?

[jsasaki]

It would have been nice if FIRST supplied us with at least 1 ball in the KOP like they did with the orbit balls last year.

[rfolea]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

I'll begin this with my standard preface that

BUT... if it is indeed the case that the soccer balls are now sold out, this is entirely inexcusable. Last year... the first time... was a forgivable mistake. But to source game pieces made of unobtainium for two years in a row is unacceptable.

Jason

"Well hopefully we will see two things out of this:
1) a lesson learned for distribution"

Why does everyone refer to last year as "the First Time?" Does no one remember the poof ball fiasco - that company was totally blind sided. Said they could have easily been prepared if someone had just mentioned it was coming ...

Stupid Question - I can't find the spec's for the ball in the documentation - can someone point me towards it? Is it the HS300 everyone is referring to?

[MrForbes]

As usual, game piece specs are in Section 6 of the manual (ARENA)

[dtengineering]

Okay... just spoke to a DTI rep by phone. They called, based on my (now authenticated as non-spam) e-mail that I mentioned in an earlier post.

They were very friendly and helpful.

They offered a soccer ball with similar stitching and surface finish to the HS300 for the same price.

They also mentioned that the HS300 does have a slightly different finish than a standard size 5 ball that you might buy "off the shelf", so I feel it is worthwhile buying a couple of close matches.

And they certainly CAN ship to Canada.

I asked if they had been expecting a rush on soccer balls... they had been told to expect an increase in orders, and thought they were prepared... but weren't.

So FIRST did make an effort to avoid this situation... just an insufficient one.

Had we received ONE ball in our KoP we could have gone to a local store, found a similar, suitable match, saved money on shipping and brokerage, and been 100% happy with the game. Instead of, like 98 or 99% happy. (Okay... I wouldn't have been 100% happy with the new qualifying algorithm, but the game does seem to be really, really good so far.)

And on a bright side of dealing with what is actually a fairly local supplier (I was IN Seattle on Saturday to pick up the KoP!), I was able to invite the DTI folks to come out to Key Arena on March 25-27 and see what all the fuss is about.

Jason