pic: Homemade Orbit Ball! (White Paper Coming Soon)

[Matt C]

This reminds me of a story one of the mentors on my team told me about the floppies from '97 which was the only case of FIRST using a game piece that was not readily available in stores so one rather enterprising team made the floppies for other teams for a fee. There's a fundraising idea for you!

That was actually '99.

Which was also the first year of alliances as well.
I think I still have a few of those floppies laying around, I know team 190 uses them for packing material in their crate year after year.

[Mr_I]

While we've been lucky enough to find a small cache (6) of them in local stores (and are scouring the region for more), we've also been pondering making our own.

Perhaps this might plant a seed of thought: We're wondering if we can find a plastic jug (gallon or 1.5 gallon, maybe from a bleach bottle?) that is about the right size, and then slice it on a bandsaw to 1" strips. Finding such a container might make it easier to make, since A) you could use 2 or three rings whole, B) the plastic is already round, and C) the jugs might be readily available and essentially free.

Happy hunting!

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Mr_I

Perhaps this might plant a seed of thought: We're wondering if we can find a plastic jug (gallon or 1.5 gallon, maybe from a bleach bottle?) that is about the right size, and then slice it on a bandsaw to 1" strips. Finding such a container might make it easier to make, since A) you could use 2 or three rings whole, B) the plastic is already round, and C) the jugs might be readily available and essentially free.

The major concern I would have with this process is that, if you left the loops whole instead of riveting them together, they would not be nearly as breakable as the regular Orbit Balls. I really think that, just like last year, when we had to worry about balls that were not optimally inflated, we are this year going to have to worry about Orbit Balls that are pretty busted up (at least internally).

Patrick

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Mr_I

Perhaps this might plant a seed of thought: We're wondering if we can find a plastic jug (gallon or 1.5 gallon, maybe from a bleach bottle?) that is about the right size, and then slice it on a bandsaw to 1" strips. Finding such a container might make it easier to make, since A) you could use 2 or three rings whole, B) the plastic is already round, and C) the jugs might be readily available and essentially free.

Can you interlock the whole rings as the orbit balls are interlocked? I haven't attempted to see the interlocking pattern because I don't want to break any of them.

[Carbon419]

WOW, that is really cool. Not gonna lie. Could you send our team some of those. JK. I wonder if those are stronger than the store balls?

[BandChick]

Art answered a bunch of questions about this homemade ball on the first page.
Here's the link to the actual post: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=15

[tanyaheartbots]

My team is also making the Orbit Balls .But what is the material that is used in the original Orbit Ball??