We got a set of 10 poof balls on the day of the kickoff, and have been playing with them for the last 3 weeks. Well we heard about a local Bartell’s Drugs selling a whole bunch of them cheap, so we went and bought them out (yes… we got some funny looks). Well I just happened to be holding one of the new balls in one hand and one of the old ones in another and I made an interesting observation, the old one was a LOT more squishy. I would have never noticed if we had not gotten the two sets at different times but luckily we did.
Oh well, guess now we gotta make a shooter that can do both!
Let me guess – you cleaned out the Bear Creek Bartell’s, right? At least they had plenty of all the S-P balls except the basketball tonight. Ball hogs…
We’ve seen some interesting trajectory differences between new balls and an (ab)used ball. Could be related to compressibility… They fly quite differently - should make for more fun as the season progresses!
Unless FIRST supplies new balls for all regionals, I expect that teams who shoot balls will find that what works at early regionals won’t necessarily work later in the season (or vice versa) - because of wear and tear on the balls. Wonder if there are differences between manufacturing lots, too…
