Thoughts on the competiton balls

[Alavinus]

I think the whole controversy was over blown. The only time you are allowed to assume a spherical ball is in physics class. In reality, the world engineering is based in, the balls really are inflated and deformed into all sorts of shapes and textures. You must be able to adapt your robot and players to them. I like what FIRST said about it best: They consider it part of the "Game Challenge"

[Aaron Lussier]

At the BAE regional I filled up about 90% of the Big and Small balls, I noticed the film on the small balls, and posted on CD about the problem. I filled the small balls using the 13" box that FIRST supplied. Once the ball touched all four sides of the the box I stopped filling. With the big balls it was a bit tougher I had to use the robot inspection box to measure the 30 inches in Diameter. One problem with the big balls was that over night they would sometime loose over an inch in size and had to be filled up again.

-Aaron

[Solace]

the ball inconsistencies didn't really bother us, even though our bot was designed for the most part to focus on them. if you have a bot that sucks up the small balls, and the slippery surfaces are hurting you, there is some great grippy tape stuff that you can get to increase your gription.

[NotQuiteFree]

I was the human player for team 957 at the PNW Regional, and I did have quite a few problems with the balls. But, then I found the answer. Baby powder. If you put baby powder on your hands before you go into play, you don't notice the slipperyness (is that a word?) so much. Also, practice makes perfect. During the practice rounds, I was probably shooting a 60%, but by the next day, I would estimate a 97% average. They weren't so bad AFTER you got used to them. But, still, yuck.

[Heretic121]

baby powder... hhhmmmm

/note to self... buy and test baby powder on Thursday @ UTC... /end note to self

[Yan Wang]

Question: Were the balls inflated to the same diameter (13") at competition? This seems like a dumb question but last year, when my team attended the Chesapeake regional, the bins at competition were not the same width (skinny side) as the bins that FIRST suggested we order... didn't take us long to figure that out.

[dez250]

Originally Posted by Yan Wang

Question: Were the balls inflated to the same diameter (13") at competition? This seems like a dumb question but last year, when my team attended the Chesapeake regional, the bins at competition were not the same width (skinny side) as the bins that FIRST suggested we order... didn't take us long to figure that out.

At the NJ regional we tried to keep them at the regulation size of 13". Though after many bot handled them and many HP's shot them, they not only changed their diameter size but also became a little oblong. You should remember this is part of the game and they will not be checked that often during the day for size. They normally are checked in the morning and if time allows, during a break.

[Aaron Lussier]

Originally Posted by Yan Wang

Question: Were the balls inflated to the same diameter (13") at competition?

At BAE, yes 13". As I said before I did about 90% of the Big and Small Balls.

-Aaron

[Zorkinian]

I saw a few teams that had difficulty using the new balls - at the UCF regional, one ball-collector team that catches all 18 (most of the time) balls from the ball release bin built their ball ejection mechanism based on the balls that they were given. Now, with these new balls, they can only eject a few balls (3 or 4) of the 18 or so that they carry. They're currently upgrading, but that's probably the most extreme case of the balls interfering with robot design.

[jacob_dilles]

did any one else pop a yellow ball? i saw one get popped at VCU... that scares me cuz there pretty beafy balls

[Zorkinian]

Originally Posted by jacob_dilles

did any one else pop a yellow ball? i saw one get popped at VCU... that scares me cuz there pretty beafy balls

Yeah, one team (can't remember the number) had a hook paired with their ball-handling system, and they came down too fast and popped one of the balls with their hook (accidentially). It surprised everyone, even though severals teams popped their balls or had problems with them way before competition.

[*JyNx*]

two yellow balls popped at the NJ regional

[dez250]

Originally Posted by *JyNx*

two yellow balls popped at the NJ regional

If i remember right as being on the field, i think it was more like 4 or 5 total that poped through out the event. It seems that most of the big balls that pop are not specifically from the bot it occurs with, yet in the previous match the ball is damaged and it completly fails in the following match.

[Aaron Lussier]

Originally Posted by dez250

If i remember right as being on the field, i think it was more like 4 or 5 total that poped through out the event. It seems that most of the big balls that pop are not specifically from the bot it occurs with, yet in the previous match the ball is damaged and it completly fails in the following match.

9 Big balls at BAE popped. Most of the pops we had were from Bots either fighting over it and eventually pinching it.

In the case of one or two teams they had a sharp corner exposed on there ball grabbing mechanism that popped a big ball or two.

Good thing we always stayed one ahead of the popping ones.

-Aaron

[miketwalker]

Originally Posted by Zorkinian

I saw a few teams that had difficulty using the new balls - at the UCF regional, one ball-collector team that catches all 18 (most of the time) balls from the ball release bin built their ball ejection mechanism based on the balls that they were given. Now, with these new balls, they can only eject a few balls (3 or 4) of the 18 or so that they carry. They're currently upgrading, but that's probably the most extreme case of the balls interfering with robot design.

That would be our bot, but yea... the past 2 days have been TERRIBLE to us because of this. Because of them sending us the wrong balls, we had to design the robot around what we were given and because those balls sent in the kit were so hard, we could never run them through the rollers... so we couldn't test it except with the one ball in the kit. We've completly revamped our robot at least 4 or 5 times in the past 2 days to get it to work, but nothing is working. So yea, I'm very very disappointed in this, because this competition is causing amazing troubles that would have all been avoided if we had been given the proper things. I just hope that by the end of tommorow or during practice day at our next regional we can actually get it to work... because otherwise this whole season we're in trouble... we've already messed up at least the qualifying rounds of this competition which disappoints me. But, you live and learn... so tommorow's a new day, we'll see what happens.