paper: HOW TO: Make Homemade Orbit Balls

[skimoose]

The balls made with lexan will be a little stiffer than real Orbit Balls in general. Placing the rivet on a diagonal or inline may add to this stiffness, but generally just causing a stiff region at the splice. If the splices are rotated to different positions on the ball it balances out the stiffness over the entire ball.

We haven't tried using only one rivet it may relieve just a little of the stiff, but will decrease durability. The material (lexan) is just a little stiffer than the plastic in the real orbit balls. This was a compromise between a perfect copy and price. Most of the plastics we looked at would have doubled the price per ball for construction.

As far as your pre-ship event. It should not have a major impact. This is usually a time for teams to shake out the bugs. If they're relying on a pre-ship scrimmage to definitively test they're design, that's always a dangerous decision. Teams should always test their robots repeatedly under various conditions. Remember, Orbit balls can, and do, break, trackballs and other inflatables deflate, tetras break, teams must understand how these non-optimal conditions will affect their design.

Simply remind teams attending your event that these are NOT official playing field pieces, and performance of their robot may be affected.