We’ve been seeing the yellow powder from the power cells collecting on our shooter motors and other parts of our shooter mechanism. I expect it will collect on everything as the season goes on. So, the biggest dilemma that the FIRST community faces as we build up to the start of official events is what are we going to call the yellow powder?
I have seen the term “lemon zest” emerging as a front runner in week 0 discussions.
To me it looks more like the pollen that coats my car every spring, so I am leaning toward “power pollen”.
I would call it illegal… probably need to figure out why your mechanism is destroying Power Cells… we haven’t seen any issues with yellow powder, likely because our shooter wheels don’t slip on the Power Cells.
You’re never going to get called for a G26f just because you have some lemon zest in your shooter or your gearboxes. See the blue box under G26 and also any other year with non-durable game pieces (2011, 2012, 2016, etc.) where this sort of thing was common and never called.
Surprisingly, there is no visible degradation of the power cells themselves. In fact, other teams have brought their power cells to our practice field when they come to practice and their power cells look a lot more worn (dull yellow color rather than bright yellow) than ours do.
Is no one else seeing this powder? It is very similar to the grey powder that was quite common in 2016.
It also reminds me of some teams who had yellow streaks on their shooter wheels or hoods from wiffle balls in 2017. And of course orange powder in 2012.
POWER CELLS are expected to undergo a reasonable amount of wear and tear as they
are handled by ROBOTS, such as scratching or marking. Gouging, tearing off pieces, or
routinely marking POWER CELLS are violations of this rule.
As long as they don’t get turned into hats like in 2012 and 2016, I think you’ll be okay.
Honestly I am super glad that nobody has suggested calling it yellow snow.
The zest that we see on our shooter motors is a combination of both the power cell cover and the material that makes up our shooting wheel. One is yellow, the other is green. It’s sort of a citrus mix! (Insert shout out to 1678 here).
If we had a poll, lemon zest with definitely be my choice.
Your wheels slip on the power cells. It’s impossible for them not to slip at some point during the acceleration of the ball. The wheel can’t decelerate instantly and the ball can’t accelerate instantly. Therefore, a velocity discrepancy exists at some point during the time the ball is in your shooter and thus slip is happening.
I’m also trying to come up with something related to “scruffy-looking nerfherder”, since it’s from foam balls and all, though perhaps it catching on would annoy Disney, Hasbro, and Flaghouse all at once.
