Clean Sweep Game Pieces - Sources

[Blake_Ross]

Today at WalMart I bought a Nerf Poof Football ($4.00) and 3 Nerf Poof Mini-Baseballs (3x$2.50) - I couldn’t find 4" Nerf Poof Soccer Balls.

Who can tell me if what I bought will work well enough as substitutes for the official Clean Sweep game pieces from IFI.

One non-trivial discrepancy I already suspect is that the baseballs might be a little light (maybe 1.5 oz instead of 2.0 oz). Another is that the football is 5.50" wide instead of 5.25".

Blake

[BrentJ]

@gblake

Today at WalMart I bought a Nerf Poof Football ($4.00) and 3 Nerf Poof Mini-Baseballs (3x$2.50) - I couldn’t find 4" Nerf Poof Soccer Balls.

Who can tell me if what I bought will work well enough as substitutes for the official Clean Sweep game pieces from IFI.

One non-trivial discrepancy I already suspect is that the baseballs might be a little light (maybe 1.5 oz instead of 2.0 oz).

Blake

I don’t have pieces to compare but as has been pointed out in another post the team registrations are already open.

So if you definetly plan to have a team in 2010 just register your team and they will send sample balls in your welcome kit.

[bellpride]

Maybe I’m a little picky about replacements, but the only medium balls I could find (that met IFI’s published specs) are here (9" long for sure), and I suspect [see bottom of post]; there are a lot of similar ones out there, but their dimensions are not quite right.

@gblake

Who can tell me if what I bought will work well enough as substitutes for the official Clean Sweep game pieces from IFI?

I think weight wouldn’t be much of an issue, but a different hardness and size could prove problematic in the long run. IFI documents weight, size, and material, but leaves the hardness to our imagination. We’re aiming for game pieces with exact dimensions (assuming they even exist), because we’ve already suffered before from building around bad game pieces…

EDIT: Go to http://www.usgames.com, and search “Super Soft Football.”

[Kendalls]

@corpralchee

Note: bellpride your second link doesn’t work anymore.

The link works for me, but it was slow on loading.

[Blake_Ross]

@BrentJ

I don’t have pieces to compare but as has been pointed out in another post the team registrations are already open.

So if you definetly plan to have a team in 2010 just register your team and they will send sample balls in your welcome kit.

Thanks - I understand that.

Now … Can anyone who has info about the games pieces from IFI, tell me if what I bought will work well enough (a subjective judgement call) as substitutes for the official Clean Sweep game pieces from IFI?

Another way to ask this is to ask this. Does anyone out there in non-IFI land know if the official game pieces are Nerf Poofs or very close knock-offs?

Blake
PS: I chose to create this thread outside of the official Q&A so that we could add to it as we find sources for identical or close-enough parts.

[721tba]

@bellpride

I think weight wouldn’t be much of an issue, but a different hardness and size could prove problematic in the long run. IFI documents weight, size, and material, but leaves the hardness to our imagination. We’re aiming for game pieces with exact dimensions (assuming they even exist), because we’ve already suffered before from building around bad game pieces…

Weight is a somewhat important issue… At least with a basic scissor lift pneumatic/elastic powered launcher. It managed to bend the rod of a pneumatic cylinder just launching one ball. While it was repaired, that will not be attempted again.

You are also not the only team who has suffered from bad game pieces, don’t worry As we figured out in Dallas, the cubes we had were so worn that the foam had softened. As a result, we had to redo some spacing issues to prevent jamming.

[bellpride]

@721tba

Weight is a rather important issue. While ultimately, our scissor lift pneumatic/elastic powered launcher was a success, we also bent the rod of a cylinder just launching one game piece at a time. While it was repaired, we aren’t going to do that any more.

I wasn’t even considering a catapult - but in that case, you’re right, weight is most definitely important.

@721tba

You are also not the only team who has suffered from bad game pieces, don’t worry As we figured out in Dallas, the cubes we had were so worn that the foam had softened. As a result, we had to redo some spacing issues to prevent jamming.

Our first (and last) quarterfinal, the second cube in the autoloader was just a hair’s length too skinny.

[Blake_Ross]

@gblake

Today at WalMart I bought a Nerf Poof Football ($4.00) and 3 Nerf Poof Mini-Baseballs (3x$2.50) - I couldn’t find 4" Nerf Poof Soccer Balls.
…
One non-trivial discrepancy I already suspect is that the baseballs might be a little light (maybe 1.5 oz instead of 2.0 oz). Another is that the football is 5.50" wide instead of 5.25".

I used a better scale to weigh the Nerf Poof balls I bought (See the quote above).

The mini-Basketballs are not too light. They are almost a perfect .125 Lb (2 oz) and Football is just a touch over .4 Lbs.

Until I get different information, I am going to assume they match the real thing or are close enough. The Football’s width difference still bugs me a bit, but I’m not going to fret too much over that right now.

Blake