05-01-2009 02:22

Woody1458

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

WOW! Thank you so much for proving that it can be done. I cannot wait for the white paper/tutorial vid as all the local stores in my area have been cleaned out. I am sure that my team will be making these. Is the spring constant approximately equal between the real and reproduced? A good test would be resting a heavy book on one, measuring then depression then doing the same to the other.

05-01-2009 02:32

Vikesrock

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

Unfortunately this is also a good way to break them.

05-01-2009 02:38

Woody1458

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

OK maybe a medium weight book Start at Dr Suess, and move up to JK Rowling.

05-01-2009 02:42

EricVicenti

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

I also reccomend dropping the real one and fake one at the same time while videotaping. On the tape you can count the bounces and see the height, comparing the consistancy.

What are the actual balls made of?

05-01-2009 02:44

GarrettF2395

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

If all else fails, it seems you have a potential future in the toy manufacturing busyness.

05-01-2009 03:13

AdamHeard

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

Awesome.

I like the compression test Idea, maybe do 10 test with varied orientations of the ball with each, and compare the average?

Also, did you happen to measure the internal plastic on a stock ball?

05-01-2009 03:30

Koko Ed

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

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!

05-01-2009 03:49

Woody1458

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

fixed

gosh darn Orbit Balls

05-01-2009 09:18

Matt C

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

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.

05-01-2009 11:01

Mr_I

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

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!

05-01-2009 11:11

pfreivald

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

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

05-01-2009 12:25

samir13k

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

Hey, Thats a totally awesome idea...
That had not even crossed my mind. Luckily, our team snagged a dozen at a single walmart, but this may come in handy for when the ones we have become unreliable.
Nice job, and good luck making that video. For now though, I had found a video that shows you how to weave the ball.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...aper-Football/

05-01-2009 13:13

Mike Schreiber

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

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.

05-01-2009 13:34

artdutra04

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

I just did this test by stacking six encyclopedia volumes each upon both the real Orbit ball and the reproduction side by side, and they compressed nearly the exact same amount (they were within 3/8" of each other, which I'd guess is within the tolerance of the balls anyway).

I also did this test by simultaneously dropping both balls next to each other, as well as a second test of throwing the balls at the ground at the same time with same velocity. In both tests, they bounced to the exact same height. Between these results, and the compression results from above, I'd consider these a nearly perfect reproduction of the Orbit Ball. (Except the polycarbonate rings don't break easily!)

I still don't know, but .062" polycarbonate provides a very good approximation for cheaper than many other plastics (using McMaster prices).

I don't want to take apart one of our five actual Orbit balls, as they are all still unbroken. However using calipers I estimate that the interior ring is 1.00" wide with an I or C channel shape. The edges are about .093" thick, and I cannot really tell the thickness of the inside between the two, but I'm estimating it's about .050"

Milk jugs or similar plastic containers are only a few thousandths thick, and lose nearly all of their strength as soon as the container is breached (with holes, cuts, etc). I don't think it would be feasible to make full-scale reproduction with same characteristics, but they may have potential for 1/3-scale Vex prototyping.

05-01-2009 13:42

Kims Robot

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

We are eagerly looking forward to this whitepaper since it seems we have a much more time consuming repeat of the tetras year if we want enough to host our pre-ship scrimmage

05-01-2009 13:42

AdamHeard

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

I guess the next challenge is to make them break realistically....

05-01-2009 13:44

BandChick

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

Thanks for this Art, and thank your dad too!
I can't wait to see your YouTube help video and your white paper.

This is FIRST inginuity at its finest!
Way to think outside the box!

05-01-2009 13:54

Graham Donaldson

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

We might very well be doing this... I've never seen a Wal-Mart in our area. I searched, and the closest one (according to the store locator) is almost 10 miles away.

05-01-2009 14:10

Marc P.

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

As a quick word to the wise, it may be worth checking with the manufacturer to ensure there aren't any patent/copyright issues with reproducing the Orbit balls. I'd imagine most toy companies would patent any sort of unique designs of their products, to prevent mass (re)production by competitors.

Even if they are a discontinued item, they may still be protected legally. Better to find out beforehand, than find out the hard way later.

05-01-2009 14:13

Elgin Clock

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

Speaking of: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cou...ase_id-220023/

I wonder if Poof-Slinky sued Blip over this very item, & that's why they are discontinued.
That would be true irony at it's finest.


What do you shop at for a similar store? Kmarts are minimal, Targets just kinda started popping up around here in the last 5 years I think, so what is your main store you shop at?

Also, 10 miles isn't that far. That's what, a 15 minute drive? (maybe 20 with dealing with the darn jughandles in your state, but still.. lol)

Then again, I drive 25 miles past 2 Walmarts on my way home & to work some days, so 10 miles isn't a big deal to me much anymore.

05-01-2009 14:13

Andrew Bates

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

As long as they don't sell them they should be fine, maybe not legally but I doubt Blip toys is going to invest the time to prosecute anyone who makes these. I'm not saying it's right though.

05-01-2009 15:16

artdutra04

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

We don't plan on selling them or making a profit off them in any way.

There are no patents or patent pending numbers listed on the commercial Orbit ball packaging.

Edit: The only thing a trademark or copyright can protect is the name, logo, etc. These are "interwoven, spandex-covered moon rock balls" for the 2009 FIRST Robotics Competition.

The design for these reproduction moon rock balls was only commenced because there was a need: the company discontinued production of a critical component (read: an interwoven, spandex-covered ball) needed for students participating in the goals of a non-profit organization.

And if they request that we remove the information because they have a valid reason (such as to protect an applicable patent) then we'll comply and delete anything applicable about this from the Internet. But if they do have any patents, and if the patent is unrelated to the design of the ball (such as if they patented the process by which a machine can mechanically weave the ball), then I don't see how it can affect this, since for this example these are made by hand.

So I figured let's help all teams; as this is something that can potentially help every team in the world achieve their goals of the FIRST Robotics Competition this year.

So if lawyers want to get involved and stop thousands of high school kids from successfully competing in a game made by a non-profit organization designed to inspire kids to science and technology, then they really have no soul.

05-01-2009 15:24

Akash Rastogi

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

Art, great work on those "interwoven, spandex-covered moon rock balls!"

Let us know when that white paper is out.

05-01-2009 21:16

R Stephenson

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

FYI
http://www.logoloc.com/first/

Look at the right side

05-01-2009 21:23

sayso_411

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

lol...i dont think teams have many to work with


edit: what about the right side?

05-01-2009 21:26

EricH

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

Coming soon: FRC Game Pieces.

05-01-2009 21:33

sayso_411

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

Oh wow totally missed that!

Thanks

05-01-2009 21:59

Andrew Bates

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

I know it's not up there yet but does anyone in the "know" know how much FIRST will be selling the game pieces for?

05-01-2009 23:54

daltore

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

FIRST is selling the game pieces for $10 a piece. You have to fill out this application process to get them.

How much does the replication ball weigh in comparison to the actual one? I see this difference being very crucial in calculations. Our team managed to find 17 balls (the afternoon of Kick-off and Sunday), so I'll try to get a chance to find the range of deviation and the distribution of deviation of the ball's weight to see if it will affect results.

If Blip has discontinued this product, how would they make money off of the design anymore? Simply by filing suits against students of a non-profit? I think it's pretty obvious they would lose, and so they'd have to foot the cost of a lawyer and actually lose money, so I'm pretty sure we'll be okay.

06-01-2009 01:23

FoleyEngineer

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

Team910 - The Foley Freeze tried our hand at making a ball today too. It came out pretty nice! We measured the strips in the KOP ball at 1 1/8 wide BTW, and created a duplicate by cutting strips and riviting them together (two at each overlapping joint). Here's a picture of the new ball (clear plastic) next to the KOP one, and then it wrapped in shiny duct tape - for fun!

06-01-2009 01:55

artdutra04

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

Word on the streets is that there may be an announcement about the Orbit Ball availability in sometime later today (Tuesday).

Because of that, we're currently holding off on releasing the white paper and video until then.

However, as it stands we still are looking to release this white paper. Even if a reliable source for these balls is made available, our polycarbonate replicate ones are much more durable (while having nearly identical characteristics), which is very important for human player practicing. Because while FIRST events may have hundreds of spare ones, with the economy the way it currently is, nearly all team budgets won't allow for this, ;-)

It looks good. The dual 1/8" pop rivets is the exact same method we used on ours, and so far holds really well.

06-01-2009 01:59

Thermal

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

This game piece fiasco is absurd. Our team is very strapped on money this year and we cannot justify spending 100 dollars for enough gameballs to adequately test our manipulator. At the very least we should of been supplied 5 balls in the KOP.

If the game uses 128 balls on a field at a time, FIRST should ship more than 1 game ball to a team. I mean we all got one trackball which is MONSTROUS and ROBUST compared to this shoddily constructed item. We need around 10 balls to accurately test any manipulator we use but why should we have to pay 100 dollars plus shipping for that privaledge? Not only that but have to jump through hoops and apply on the website to even get a chance to give FIRST our money for balls we should of been supplied with anyways. I think i've pretty adequately described my extreme distaste over this issue so i'll stop ranting now.

06-01-2009 03:06

Chris Sturrock

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

our team has come to the same conclusion. after searching nearby stores in both Niagara Falls Canada AND Niagara falls New York, a few of our members got to work on a scale model orbit ball which they made out of strips of plastic. we decided that it would probably just be easier to make a bunch ourselves.

06-01-2009 06:54

Doug Leppard

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

Is the white paper out yet? If so where?

06-01-2009 09:25

BandChick

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

Art will probably release it sometime today or tomorrow.
He waited for the official word on Orbit Balls before he chose whether or not to post it.

06-01-2009 10:23

Carbon419

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

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?

06-01-2009 12:47

BandChick

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

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

06-01-2009 15:41

Cynette

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

I'm optimistic that once the initial flurry to obtain game pieces subsides that the spirit of "coopertition (cooperation and competition combined) will prevail. I hope that areas where there are multiple teams will generate inventory lists so that teams with few balls will be able to access a sufficient number of balls for robot testing. Of course that doesn't help the remotely located teams or teams not in the US.

I know our team is concerned since we host a pre-ship rally and spending money to buy a full competition quantity of balls is out of the question. If we can make the balls cheaper, we may start production soon to at least generate enough to give teams a good simulation at Rochesters Rally.

Ah, let me do the math: Four Volunteers making One ball a night x 40 nights until rally = 160 balls! Now if I could find four volunteers willing to give up their evenings for the next 40 days, and who aren't already working on building a robot, all would be well. Hello out there! Any takers?

06-01-2009 16:56

artdutra04

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

If you are making only one ball at a time, the process takes a few hours. But if you make a mini production line, the process goes much quicker. ;-)

Until another McMaster order comes in, we only have enough polycarbonate to make one (maybe two) more homemade moon rock ball(s) at the moment. I'm bringing our video camera to tonight's meeting to film the process. And since the official Orbit ball availability doesn't look to be improving much in its situation, we'll be working to get this white paper and video out to all teams ASAP.

06-01-2009 21:25

IKE

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

We made 15-20 of the plastic only (like the 910 ball) balls tonight in 3 hours (me, another mentor, and about 4 kids). We are going to use those for human player training as they are more durabble than the toy and nearly identical size, weight,......

One thing we did a little different was 1 rivet, and then bonded the end of strips with special Polycarbonate glue.

Overall this I feel will be a very worthwhile exercise at least as practice balls for human players.

Thansk for posting the dimensions guys!

(p.s. if you have a sheer with a stop, you can make these much faster).

06-01-2009 22:33

Darkcrosbone

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

Thank you Samir13k i followed your instructions on how to make a mini orbit ball and this is what i got
http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/a...t=PICT3530.jpg
http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/a...t=PICT3534.jpg
when you did it was it with thick paper? because i used normal paper and i had to use alot of tape on the joints to keep it together and it took a long time to peal it off.

07-01-2009 04:09

artdutra04

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

As promised, here the white paper!

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

or alternate location (with downloadable how-to video for schools with YouTube/Vimeo blocking):

http://www.team228.org/media/documents/view/29

07-01-2009 04:15

Akash Rastogi

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

Thanks very much Art!

btw, why are we both still awake? lol

07-01-2009 06:16

Doug Leppard

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

Art thanks for the "Gus" balls, this will be very helpful.

07-01-2009 06:40

artdutra04

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

Also, if there are any teams in the general Connecticut area that would like to see one of our "Gus balls" in person, Team 228 will be hosting our annual Kickoff pasta dinner fundraiser event this Sunday, January 11th at Maloney High School, 121 Gravel St, Meriden, CT 06450 from 4pm until 7pm.

07-01-2009 07:52

Graham Donaldson

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

Thanks Art! This is very useful to those of us who only got one extra orbit ball...goes to make some Gus balls.

07-01-2009 07:52

Elgin Clock

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

Will you and/or the team be playing with some on the mountain Saturday as well?? You should def wear one of those as a hat or something for a "costume" during that event.

07-01-2009 09:29

Cynette

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

Thanks GUS! And Art! I'm sure our team will be trying their hands at making a "GUS Ball" sometime soon! We are hoping we will be able to find spandex in Rolling Thunder team colors to use!

07-01-2009 13:27

skimoose

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

Yes, most of the team will be "Doing the Dew" Saturday.

Hopefully, now that this little project is finished we'll be able to finish a certain t-shirt slinging Dewbot for Saturday too.

08-01-2009 02:48

Woodworker88

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

If you are interested in how they go together, watch this video:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/400083...aper_football/
I made one out of paper as a test and it's not too bad.

08-01-2009 14:58

tanyaheartbots

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

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