AndyMark FIRST Choice Tease

[ehochstein]

AndyMark sent out an email today with the subject "FIRST Choice Tease"

Greetings!

Things are VERY busy here at AndyMark this fall. Staff has traveled to several off-season events in recent weeks - Panther Prowl, SCRIW, CAGE, Houston Robot Remix and are on their way to Cow Town ThrowDown this weekend. We are also receiving parts almost daily for FIRST Choice, so our warehouse seems to be shrinking. We thought we would use this e-mail blast to talk about the growth we are seeing.

FIRST Robotics is growing! The registration for teams is progressing very well. According to FRC team 358 mentor, WFFA winner and stat tracking guru Mark McLeod, here are FRC team registration numbers as of noon today:
2298 Registered FRC teams, compared to 1943 on this date last year
This is a 18.3% growth rate.
FIRST hopes to get as many as 2800 teams for the 2013 season. Here is a snapshot of the number of registered events for FRC teams:
Teams attending 3 Events: 1%
Teams attending 2 Events: 29%
Teams attending 1 Event: 70%
Key dates are coming up soon for FRC teams. FIRST Choice parts will be available to be viewed on the AndyMark site beginning Nov. 12th. Then, teams will be able to order their FIRST Choice parts BEFORE kickoff this year, on Dec. 10th. There were 689 teams who chose an AndyMark PDV instead of the Kit Drive System, and those teams will be able to start using their $450 PDV for AndyMark parts also on Dec. 10th. Check out FIRST's official Blog announcement here.

http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs186/1103606398845/img/201.jpg

Look for new products to be released at AndyMark.com in the coming weeks.


Any ideas on what is under those blue tarps or in the boxes?

[Gregor]

Any ideas on what is under those blue tarps or in the boxes?

Some FIRST Choice stuff :p

[ehochstein]

Some FIRST Choice stuff :p

No wait I got it... The FIRST Choice items this year are boxes and blue tarps :P Robots have to build a shelter to protect themselves from rain... Water game!

[Phyrxes]

So someone at HQ reads XKCD and decided to make that comic come true, spiffy!

[Redo91]

The arrows are obviously pointing at the wood pallets.

[DampRobot]

The arrows are obviously pointing at the wood pallets.

You are incorrect, dear sir. The arrows clearly indicate that the concrete floor is a FIRST Choice material. My calculations indicate that the game will involve pouring large areas of concrete and waiting for it to dry. Field reset should be interesting.

[Jeff Pahl]

I'm hoping we can get more than one blue tarp!!

[ehfeinberg]

You are incorrect, dear sir. The arrows clearly indicate that the concrete floor is a FIRST Choice material. My calculations indicate that the game will involve pouring large areas of concrete and waiting for it to dry. Field reset should be interesting.

You are both wrong!

The arrows are pointing towards the blue tarps. Now, why might there be tarps there, one may ask? To protect what it is covering from water! Therefore, the arrows are pointing to the water droplets on the tarps, thus indicating a water game!:D

[jeremy callahan]

The arrows are obviously pointing at the wood pallets.

They are point towards a pallet and what do you do to stuff on pallets you stack stuff and so it will be some to do with stacking boxes and when was the last event we did that?

[Saberbot]

We could really use some of CSI's image enhancement software. With that we could isolate the reflection on the concrete and see below the tarps.

[JVN]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/27740152.jpg

[Richard Wallace]

Tarp

(how many permutations can I make?)

Part
Trap
Prat
Rapt

This is fun.

Maybe the 2013 game is called "Tarp Trap"?

[Littleboy]

Maybe we are allowed to use parts to build the robot. That would be new.
But I think the game will involve us building cardboard boats, putting robots in to paddle them, and then race around the pool.

[mickztlin]

I checked andy mark and the new products and they added polycarbonate and I think the game may be have a high and low traction field.

[ksafin]

Any idea of FIRST Choice window shopping opens at midnight?

[~Cory~]

Tarps hold water.


WATER GAME!

[ttldomination]

Any word on this "window"? A link or something? I can't seem to find anything.

- Sunny G.

[Gary Dillard]

From FIRST website:
The FIRST Choice store will open for viewing only sometime on November 12, 2012.

[Brandon Holley]

In all seriousness, being able to select our FIRST choice items before kickoff is awesome. The KOP engineers in Manchester are doing an awesome job responding to feedback and streamlining the process for everyone.

-Brando

[ttldomination]

From FIRST website:

Gosh Darnit. When working late at night, I often forget about the time change.

Apologies,
- Sunny G.

[David Brinza]

Any word on this "window"? A link or something? I can't seem to find anything.

- Sunny G.

Here's the FIRST webpage for FIRST Choice (http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/first-choice).

The Andy Mark site should be opening today to view some of the FIRST Choice items.

Teams can select items starting Dec. 10 using credits obtained through TIMS.

[Mark McLeod]

It's open now: http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-Public-s/411.htm

IR Transmitter (fc13-004) (http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-004.htm)is interesting.

Anubis 3D Print Job (fc13-092) (http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-092.htm), too.


Talons are on there.

Ooo, circular saws, Battlebots IQ?

Lots of video card choices for the robot this year :rolleyes:

8-slot cRIO for some odd reason. Must be left overs.

[maddoctor90]

IR Transmitter (fc13-004) (http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-004.htm)is interesting.



2008 Overdrive hybrid period coming back?

[Gary Dillard]

Snow Blower Motor? Forget the water game, how about a snow game?

[SarahBeth]

Snow Blower Motor? Forget the water game, how about a snow game?

That was my first thought too. That'd be quite the field reset.

Or how about the laser distance meter and sonar senser.....Battleship anyone?

[Littleboy]

There is a metric crescent wrench.

The remote has no purpose other than to hint that the game will be a water game.
Remote
adjective
2.
out-of-the-way; secluded: a remote village; a remote mountaintop.

This must mean that whatever surface the game is on is secluded from FIRST choice.
What is secluded from FIRST choice? Yep, thats right. WATER. Water Game 2013! Thank you AndyMark for this wonderful hint.

[joelg236]

I don't quite understand the purpose of this (http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-022.htm). Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

[MagiChau]

I don't quite understand the purpose of this (http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-022.htm). Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

Its to protect the port on a electronic device from becoming damaged that may be somewhat costly to repair or replace. If the ethernet port on the classmate is destroyed you cannot connect an ethernet cable to it anymore. If this breaks the classmate one would be undamaged since presumably you would never disconnect this from the classmate so it never would experience wear and tear.

[Gary Dillard]

I don't quite understand the purpose of this (http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-022.htm). Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

It's to protect the port in the hardware mechanically. Putting the cable in and out of the cRIO (or whatever expensive piece of hardware) a bunch of times, if you fail the port you have to repair or replace the component. With the jumper, if you fail the port you just replace the jumper.

[Gregor]

I don't quite understand the purpose of this (http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-022.htm). Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

Teams continuously unplug and replug the ethernet port on their driver station laptops at competitions. This makes them susceptible to damage. Should the port on the cable you linked break, only that has to be replaced, instead of the entire DS laptop. We had an issue with a loose ethernet port on our laptop this year, so I'm ranking this high on my FIRST Choice/purchase wish list.

[joelg236]

Teams continuously unplug and replug the ethernet port on their driver station laptops at competitions. This makes them susceptible to damage. Should the port on the cable you linked break, only that has to be replaced, instead of the entire DS laptop. We had an issue with a loose ethernet port on our laptop this year, so I'm ranking this high on my FIRST Choice/purchase wish list.

Makes sense actually. Although throwing our DS around probably lends itself to more potential damage than plugging in the cord. :D

[Mark McLeod]

We also use this port saver on the robot bridge as a pit tether port.
Tied down to the frame this protects against damage and wear to the ports on the bridge, especially when we drive away and the cord doesn't follow.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

We also use this port saver on the robot bridge as a pit tether port.
Tied down to the frame this protects against damage and wear to the ports on the bridge, especially when we drive away and the cord doesn't follow.

{sarcasm}Oh, c'mon. This never happens :p {/sarcasm}

[BigJ]

{sarcasm}Oh, c'mon. This never happens :p {/sarcasm}

To this day I get aggravated whenever I see serial cables that are screwed in / together.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

To this day I get aggravated whenever I see serial cables that are screwed in / together.

True story:
During Stack attack an arm from an opposing robot found the only hole in our armor and started thrashing around inside our robot. After about 10 seconds of this our robot died on the field. At first we believed that they had damaged the IFI controller but once the match was over we discovered the real reason we stopped.

Apparently their robot had grabbed on to the serial cable between the IFI controller and the radio and pulled. Fortunately one of our students had forgotten to screw in the cable, and as such it just pulled out rather than damage the controller.

... sometimes you just get lucky.

[Anthony Galea]

Okay, I am a new team member here, so I may look stupid saying this, but what is this for?
http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-027.htm :confused:

[Richard Wallace]

Okay, I am a new team member here, so I may look stupid saying this, but what is this for?
http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-p/fc13-027.htm :confused:
It measures the temperature of surfaces by means of laser interferometry.

[slijin]

It measures the temperature of surfaces by means of laser interferometry.

i.e. it's a cool toy.

Like a snow blower motor.

But with less obvious utility.

[dcarr]

i.e. it's a cool toy.

Like a snow blower motor.

But with less obvious utility.

I suppose it could be used to check for overheating on various components? i.e. motors & motor controllers

[Akash Rastogi]

Just wondering, are we charged regular shipping for FIRST Choice items? I really didn't pay attention when I ordered last season.

Checked my order history from last season and it seems we were not charged - will this continue for this season?

[Liz Smith]

Just wondering, are we charged regular shipping for FIRST Choice items? I really didn't pay attention when I ordered last season.

Checked my order history from last season and it seems we were not charged - will this continue for this season?

Yes, teams pay for shipping.

Here is where you can find confirmation of that:
http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/first-choice-ordering-rules

You can also find some more information here:

http://www.andymark.com/firstchoiceinfo

[Robo Hamsters]

Here is an interesting possible hint from AndyMark:

AndyMark Water game T-shirt (am-2414)

Product Overview: AndyMark has been preparing for a water game since the company was founded. Maybe this year?

http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-2414.htm

[team5682zs]

Haha, Jeremy Callahan for the win.

They are point towards a pallet and what do you do to stuff on pallets you stack stuff and so it will be some to do with stacking boxes and when was the last event we did that?

[Mrjcowman]

They are point towards a pallet and what do you do to stuff on pallets you stack stuff and so it will be some to do with stacking boxes and when was the last event we did that?

Spot-on, good sir. Spot-on.