How Many Balls can a Trailer Hold???

[rfolea]

We were curious ... so here is the results of our little test:

This is 86 balls, and we could probably add some more ...

How about that?

p.s. It makes driving the robot very interesting ...

[BrownK]

How did you find 86 Orbit Balls? And wow thats a lot of Orbit balls on one trailer.

[eNyoron]

I'm hoping these balls were pooled from other teams. Otherwise you've seriously deprived nearby teams from acquiring more balls...

[Siri]

86? Nice work. How many were actually easy to put in, though? I looks like they're literally speared over the uprights, which would probably be pretty hard without going outside the bumper perimeter.

[hiimcristhian]

Originally Posted by BrownK

How did you find 86 Orbit Balls? And wow thats a lot of Orbit balls on one trailer.

That's exactly what I want to know... we had a really hard time trying to find one Orbit Balls

[MattLi]

It looks like you could hold a lot more than 86 if you were able to stack them on top. Just saying

[Alex_Miller]

Wow, that is a lot, especially considering all of the other teams that need them.

how much did all of those weigh? And, how interesting in the driving?

[rfolea]

Originally Posted by MasterAlex

Wow, that is a lot, especially considering all of the other teams that need them.

how much did all of those weigh? And, how interesting in the driving?

We build a full sized practice field each year completely at our own expense for all teams in the region to use, hence the large quantity. This years field is particularly expensive (over 3X our planned budget) and the kids are having to make a lot of sacrifices to make this available for all of the other teams.

How did we get so many? We have a VERY enthusiastic group of families and not many teams in northeast or Central Georgia ... Simply went there and dug through a LOT of bins. The Walmart folks were very helpful when they found out what we were doing.

Weight: We weighed a sample: 35 balls weighs 17.5 lbs.

[rfolea]

Originally Posted by Siri

86? Nice work. How many were actually easy to put in, though? I looks like they're literally speared over the uprights, which would probably be pretty hard without going outside the bumper perimeter.

Actually, we have done a fair amount of driving with the trailer while throwing balls and were surprised to find that a LARGE number of balls ended up on the poles. We also had a number of balls simply get stuck BETWEEN the poles due to the pole and ball flexibility.

The picture is contrived, of course. The kids were just fooling around ...

[Alex Dinsmoor]

Originally Posted by rfolea

We build a full sized practice field each year completely at our own expense for all teams in the region to use, hence the large quantity. This years field is particularly expensive (over 3X our planned budget) and the kids are having to make a lot of sacrifices to make this available for all of the other teams.

How did we get so many? We have a VERY enthusiastic group of families and not many teams in northeast or Central Georgia ... Simply went there and dug through a LOT of bins. The Walmart folks were very helpful when they found out what we were doing.

Weight: We weighed a sample: 35 balls weighs 17.5 lbs.

That explains the outrageous number of balls in that trailer.

It is very nice of your team to provide a full size field for everyones use, that is something that my team would love to have the opportunity to use.

Can you go for 100 balls?

[Alex_Miller]

Originally Posted by rfolea

We build a full sized practice field each year completely at our own expense for all teams in the region to use, hence the large quantity. This years field is particularly expensive (over 3X our planned budget) and the kids are having to make a lot of sacrifices to make this available for all of the other teams.

Weight: We weighed a sample: 35 balls weighs 17.5 lbs.

Gotcha,

So 43 pounds for all of them. (granted this would be hard to do in a match)
.5lbs/ball

[Team 1865]

My team was wondering, Does the trailer's mass once full of balls influence the driving capabilities of the robot?

[rfolea]

Originally Posted by Team 1865

My team was wondering, Does the trailer's mass once full of balls influence the driving capabilities of the robot?

Driving doesn't change too much.

Stopping does.

Kinda like the energizer bunny - it keeps going .. and going .. and going ...

[Prontopwnage]

thanks for the info ppl
interesting though

[Daniel885]

Hmm, Dean Kamen and co. probably knew all about how it would get harder and harder to stop as the match went on...

Good way to build excitement throughout the match.