This is a star that was destroyed at the tournament we hosted. This was on the practice field. There was another star similarly mutilated. If you see your robot is doing this, just stop. These game objects are not free. They cost the event partners a lot of money. I know some are going to get damaged, but this is beyond what is reasonable.
http://i1306.photobucket.com/albums/s562/havelogistics/20170129_121604_zpsxrz7umvv.jpg
You’re right, this shouldn’t happen. The game objects should be built to withstand any force a VEX robot could exert on them (within reason) or any fall they may experience during a match for at least a certain expected number of times.
Our field and game objects were being used for a practice field at an event. The pits and practice field were in a separate gym from the competition gym. Right before semi-finals I went to the practice field to start tearing it down, some kids were just starting to play “swords” and “dodge-ball” with the stars as I walked up 
I wasn’t happy.
I’ve repaired several stars with gorilla glue.
We have repaired several with the recommended hot glue method, but I think this one and another similar are a bit beyond repair.
That would be nice. The stars are definitely a known problem in this area, but this sort of destruction is beyond reason.
At last Thursday’s practice, the VEX coach/PLTW teacher was working on fixing the 60th broken star. Some have been broken more than once; a few beyond repair.
Yeah that is just wrong. This is why we don’t provide the stars for our practice field at our tournaments.
Honestly the only reason my team has had stars break is because people were being stupid and messing around, vex doesn’t make these game objects human proof they just make them robot proof. That being said I do wish they were able to not be broken so easily.
The stars do easily break. We have broken many throughout the year and just had to order some more. Nonetheless, I don’t think they ever break into 6 pieces as shown in the picture without someone tearing them apart purposely. Our robot itself has only broken a few stars, and they were only broken into 2 pieces. The others were broken by irresponsible students.
We practice a lot and we’ve only broken one star. It was at the very beginning of the season, when a sibling of a team member broke it (by falling onto it or something). I think the stars are definitely robust enough since we’ve never had a robot break one in hours of practice. I’m not saying that it can’t happen, but it seems unlikely given a reasonable robot.
I assure you the stars are breaking from normal practice, with reasonable robots. The facility where I mentor is running five practice fields. There are teams from 3 high schools practicing there, with a couple of middle school teams joining in. Goofing around with the game objects isn’t tolerated.
I will say, however, I’ve never seen a star as broken as the one at the beginning of this thread. It’s hard to see how that happened.
Although we have yet to break one into so many pieces my school has probably broken 70-100 jacks through normal practice. we just hot glue them together and hope vex makes more sturdy stuff next year.
A normal field is 28 stars, iirc. How did you manage to break 3 full fields of stars?
Lots and lots and LOTS of practice!
If your robot managed to do that… Even after lots of practice… I would be slightly worried…
Unless of course you’re playing VEX BattleBots Competition: Supernova.
Also about 7 teams
Ok, maybe you did accomplish that through sheer practice…
But still, 10-14 stars per team is a little much.
And that is how our facility has broken 60+ stars.
You’ve got my attention. Do you have rules you’d like to propose?
Exhibition game only, of course…
