As has been previously noted, we will no longer be stocking yellow power cells, as we are at the mercy of our suppliers. However, we do recognize that many teams are still looking to test the functionality of their robots as their first (or second!) competition approaches.
We have an opportunity to get more functionally identical power cells from the manufacturer, but none of them will be yellow. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the sample (purple) with two of our other non-official power cells:
If we acquire additional unofficial power cells, there will end up being a variety of colors (not just purple) available, and we would not necessarily be able to guarantee the color you receive in your order.
Would you purchase the non-yellow unofficial functionally identical power cells?
These are both great questions. The yellow Perma-Skin balls are functionally equivalent to the Dinoskin yellow balls, which are functionally equivalent to the Official FIRST game piece, and the purple Perma-Skin balls are functionally equivalent to all of the yellow variations.
The mechanical engineers, Andy, and I have tested and played around with the balls, and we’re pretty happy with them.
Just to be really clear, are they “functionally equivalent” just based on some playing around with it, or is the supplier saying they are in fact the exact same materials?
We bought some of those early on directly from Flaghouse and have been testing with them since week 2. They seem functionally equivalent to the official Power Cells. We have about 12 of each.
We were able to find some ‘functionally equivalent’ dodgeballs in Australia (not the same as this). Yellow is identical, skin is identical, the bag they come in (complete with red warnings) are identical. I’m guessing, that apart from the difference of the slipperiness of the printing on the ball… these will be identical to the real thing, within the variation specs of an international dodge ball spec.
The only real problem that I could see rise up here is if a team is trying to vision sense for yellow power cells (or the FIRST logo on the ball, but that’s stretching it a bit.). Other than that, it should not be a problem, right?
Our PE department has a bunch of the ones they’re showing here, and we started all our prototype testing with them, then moved to the official balls when we got our case of them, and noticed no change in any behavior.
So I’m not an official supplier and don’t have an official answer, but am another data point to say that they are the same.
We have confirmed that the manufacturer considers all of these to be the same ball besides color and logo. As with any product there may be batch to batch variance. As such, the ones AndyMark sells as moving forward may have any logo (or no logo) and may be any color since they are all “unofficial”. We will update this thread when we have more details on when these may be back in stock.
We ordered 24 of the yellow balls from Flaghouse, they stated to us that the yellow balls are backordered until at least the end of April. They offered red, blue, green, orange or purple as alternatives and we elected for blue (blue for speed ). I would have preferred to order these through AndyMark but now that we’ve actually placed the order through Flaghouse we do not see a further need for Power Cells through AndyMark this year.
). I would have preferred to order these through AndyMark but now that we’ve actually placed the order through Flaghouse we do not see a further need for Power Cells through AndyMark this year.