I am the Co Chair of the Great Northern Regional and am asking for the communities help. Power Cells were getting destroyed this past weekend from sharp edges, bolts under the robot, intake designs and flywheels. We only get 24 new Power Cells at the next competition so you will be playing with used ones!!! As the weeks go on the problem expands. Our playable ones went on the truck to Duluth. If you are ruining them at home, please identify the problem and fix it before the event starts!! Thanks in advance!!!
Thank you, Russ. My team hosts a district competition in Michigan, and have been told the same thing you were; i.e., we will be playing week 2 events with a very limited number of new game pieces. The majority will have been used at earlier events. I am very concerned that FRC could run short of game pieces UNLESS teams and volunteers cooperate to conserve the ones we have.
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Ohh man if it has come to this we are in BIG trouble this year…
We REALLY need FIRST to come out and be clear about how they are addressing this issue going forward. These balls are impossible to avoid driving over, and get jammed in everything, it is not the responsibility of teams to avoid damaging these balls if they are just trying to play the game.
As I stated in this thread a week ago we need more clarity from FIRST on these issues: Infinite Recharge is going to be ruined by these Game Pieces
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I was directly informed by one key event official that their understanding was each future event is to receive 48 24 new balls, with the rest pulled from stock used in prior weeks.
**edited - event official was mistaken and confirmed 24 was the correct number
Based on what we’ve heard from Week 1, to me, that sounds…very extremely not fun.
Make it louder until HQ hears y’all? 
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I don’t get why events just aren’t asking teams to bring spare balls ahead of time. If every team had a decent ball or two to donate while also cracking down on robots that are shredding them, we’d probably see more consistent game pieces into elimination rounds.
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I don’t think it’s the responsibility of teams to bring game pieces for a game they already paid thousands of dollars to play.
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I mean I’d agree, but there’s also a production shortage. I’m not sure FIRST planned for a global pandemic when it came to producing more game pieces.
I’d rather donate a few $10 balls than play with swiss cheese when we get to elimination rounds.
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Yes, I think you’re right about the root cause.
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That’s fair. Is there no suppliers in non affected regions?
Would FIRST actually allow teams to bring their own balls? I could see a few logical issues with allowing teams to supply their own PC’s.
Why are teams passing inspection with sharp edges and boltz under the bots? Theres a rule in place why not enforce it? Even shooters should demonstrate a good effort to minimize wear to the ballz.
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I don’t know 
it’s an idea. All of the teams combined at events have hundreds of balls in total, some of them probably unused. I know my team would happily donate a few to our events because we want to see everyone play the game without game piece issues.
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Robot inspections dont look for sharp edges and items that can cause damage?
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Damage to PC’s is inevitable, and common. They are not strictly due to a few key reasons like sharp edges. Plus, teams are dinged if they damage balls on the field, so there is continued insensitive to protected them. A team at Glacier Peak was out for 3 of their matches replacing an intake that was deemed too damaging to PC’s by the head ref.
Imo, FIRST should have anticipated this and bought more/prepared suppliers. I don’t know how much covid-19 has effected their ability to prepare, but as much effort as possible should be made to sufficiently supply events with game peices into the future.
What gives you this idea?
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I heard from a FIRST official at LA North that it was 24 new balls for each event. Granted, that was at the beginning of the event, maybe they’ve changed it after the balls went through the wood chipper that is Infinite Recharge.
I’ve seen power cells get caught in drive rails and get torn up due to the wheel spinning against it. Wheels aren’t the sharpest edges but these balls don’t care.
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This is assuming teams even have spare balls. Balls have gotten very hard to get ahold of.
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Ball is fine until a robot does something to it. If we all know the balls are fragile, why are we not making a better effort to handle the balls better. Some shooter designs are machining balls, why blame the balls when its the design of the shooter?
Ryan,
where is the official source of shortage? I was notified that this is not the case, but rather a miscalculation of production order request.
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I disagree. We all try to build robots to effectively manipulate the game piece, in keeping it pristine as can be. When its $18 a ball to ship to Hawaii, even more so.
The issue is i dont have access to 5 other teams to play scrimmages.
There is difference with intent to play and actually playing the game with defense and other things happening. Youre trying to play the game on a big mine field.
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I’m speculating. Balls are made in China, everything made in China has had some form of delay lately. I’m just trying to figure out how teams get to Elims and not have broken game pieces.
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