pic: Our first Red Camoflage Ball!!!

[Kims Robot]

loading photo ...

[Josh Goodman]

Just a small teaser of whats to come at the Rochester Rally Exhibition.....and hmmm.....maybe some team awards?

See ya at the competitions!

[Alex Cormier]

only 100? why not 1000? Fundraiser?

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

only 100? why not 1000? Fundraiser?

HA.... HA....HA..... IKEEELYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have no idea how we are going to get all 100 of these done......

[Liz Smith]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

only 100? why not 1000? Fundraiser?

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

HA.... HA....HA..... IKEEELYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have no idea how we are going to get all 100 of these done......

I think that was Alex volunteering to make the other 99 for you.

I do have to say they look awesome. Can't wait to see them in person.

[smurfgirl]

As soon as I saw this pic I knew what team this came from. (: Looks great! Good luck with the other 98!

[Justin Montois]

Those are awesome! I can't wait to see them at Rally! See you guys there, I hope your having a great build season!

[skimoose]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

HA.... HA....HA..... IKEEELYOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations Kim! Nice color scheme and... I know how you feel.

Our team made 22 last weekend (4 hours on Saturday, 4 on Sunday, 2 mentors and about 6 students) and we were cross-eyed by the end. We used gray gaffers tape, the same as on the trailers, to close the fabric seams and its holding up very well. That should speed things up a little for you.

We also set up a production line to speed things up. Three first three rings are easy; link ring 1 to ring 2, then link ring 3 through the first two together. We also took an Orbit Ball and numbered each ring at every intersection with another ring. This gave us an easy way to check our weaving. We had 1 student gluing batting, 1 mentor sewing fabric, 1 student installing the fabric, 1 student assembling the first three rings, and the remainder of us were the best at weaving the remainder of the ball.

To motivate us we set up two trailers and every time someone finished a ball they had to shoot it into a trailer. Seeing the trailers fill up kept us moving. We also adopted a rule, if you missed the trailer you had to make another ball and try again, if you scored you could take a break.

There weren't many misses that weekend!

Team 228 is truly humbled by the positive feedback from everyone and happy to have helped the FIRST community with this project.

[IKE]

Go to instructables.com greek football.

It shows the best way to make these. I made 2 polycarbonate ones with Rookie team in about 15 minutes this morning.

The basic instructions are:
Find 6 straps.
Turn 1 into a hoop.
Make the other 5 into a star pattern. Keep rearranging it until the straps alternate over under for every intersection and form a small pentagon surrounded by triangles.
Then tape the pentagon down to hold it in place.
Next step is raise the underside straps and insert them into the hoop. This will form the bottom of the ball.
Next alternate the straps in order to incapsulate the premade hoop.
Last step is to join the hoops one at a time. Make sure that as you continue conecting straps, they follow the over under pattern.

Once you get the hang of it, the weaving part goes really fast.

[colin340]

sweet

[Cynette]

Originally Posted by IKE

Go to instructables.com greek football.

It shows the best way to make these. I made 2 polycarbonate ones with Rookie team in about 15 minutes this morning.

The basic instructions are:
Find 6 straps.
Turn 1 into a hoop.
Make the other 5 into a star pattern. Keep rearranging it until the straps alternate over under for every intersection and form a small pentagon surrounded by triangles.
Then tape the pentagon down to hold it in place.
Next step is raise the underside straps and insert them into the hoop. This will form the bottom of the ball.
Next alternate the straps in order to incapsulate the premade hoop.
Last step is to join the hoops one at a time. Make sure that as you continue conecting straps, they follow the over under pattern.

Once you get the hang of it, the weaving part goes really fast.

Thanks Ike! I found the Greek football folding instructions this morning, but like YouTube, the video was banned where I work. We will be working on our red camo balls again tomorrow and we will be sure to try out this method. The hard part is with the camo, all the strips blend together!

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Cynette

The hard part is with the camo, all the strips blend together!

Put temporary color-coded stickers on them.

[ironbears]

Brilliant just a random quesiton to save me time whats the lenght of lexan? (if thats what you used).

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by ironbears

Brilliant just a random quesiton to save me time whats the lenght of lexan? (if thats what you used).

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2187

[Cynette]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

Put temporary color-coded stickers on them.

We did that and the rest of the team thought we had totally lost our marbles when they watched us weave camo strips while saying...

Posted on Team 1511's forum in the thread, "Re: Great 2008-09 Season Quotes!"

After nearly 45 minutes of trying to weave the ball....
Cynette: which one is purple?
Leann: Uhh, we lost them... this ones purple...
Cynette: and this one is purple...
Leann: and this one is green... and... yeah this one is green....
Cynette: so purple purple green!
Leann: yeah and this one is green....
Leann: Oh no,we lost it....