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Comment by dfxm12 | Hacker News Reader

How many times has a game of basketball been thwarted by a ball that was too flat to bounce? An air pump with a properly sized needle isn’t something most people carry around with them all the time

I'm racking my brain trying to think of one. Organized games always have the pump and extra balls laying around. Every pick up game I've played involved a few people who happened to bring a ball, and a pump wasn't far away (car trunk, or house in the neighborhood), even if no one had one on them.

I'm all for new tech for its own sake, but if you're going to try to convince me this is going to be useful, give me some real reasons why this is better than a regular ball. Is it cheaper? Will it last longer either outdoors or indoors? Is it better for the environment?

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> Organized games always have the pump and extra balls laying around. Every pick up game I've played involved a few people who happened to bring a ball, and a pump wasn't far away (car trunk, or house in the neighborhood), even if no one had one on them.

> I'm all for new tech for its own sake, but if you're going to try to convince me this is going to be useful, give me some real reasons why this is better than a regular ball.

Well the answer is convenience, right? Which shouldn't be underrated. Now you don't need spare balls, don't need to find a pump, and there's no more interruptions because of that.

It's also reducing the organization / forethought that's required, even if right now it's so commonplace that it's faded into the background.

Every time I've ever played there's been spares, not because people thought you'd need spares, but because every individual person wanted to make sure there would be at least one ball there.

This doesn't solve that particular problem.

Also during the warmup you need multiple balls. Then you don't have 10 people all waiting forever to take their shot.

When they came out with the “basketball with the tiny pump in it”, Wilson touted it as a big deal for inner city kids. This seems an effort along the same theme.

The needle in question is included in many cheap car tire air pump kit.

It is also compatible with any regular Schrader valve. For this reason I keep one inside my bicycle tire repair kit. When I go to the park with my kids I inflate the balls just before we play.

> Is it cheaper?

Very unlikely. The EOS machines are expensive and I guess it takes some time to print the ball.

But is the 3D printing solely for the prototyping phase? I would guess they’d just injection-mold the production version, after they’ve worked out the material/design questions.

Good point. Makes a lot of sense.

But you can't really injection mold this geometry, it'd have to be done in 2 halves, or quarters, and then bonded together, which would make for weird bending performance in the area of the weld and therefore make a ball that bounces unevenly

My thoughts exactly.

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