FRC Blog - FIRST Choice: Take Three!

[cgmv123]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/bog-FIRST-Choice-Take-Three

From Kate and Collin, the Kit of Parts Team

A team of dedicated, smart people from AndyMark, FIRST IT, and the FRC community have been working to revise the FIRST Choice site so that it’s robust for when we launch. We’re excited to tell you that our ongoing testing is confirming that the site is greatly improved, and we’ve decided to schedule the FIRST Choice launch for this Sunday, 12/29/13, at 3pm Eastern. You will be able to visit the FIRST Choice site before this, but team credits will be loaded at the scheduled time.

There are some things we want you to know...

- Load Time: While we’d love to provide an experience with imperceptible page load time, it’s impractical given the resources that would be required. Testing has indicated that the average page load time is approximately 13 seconds, but very few testers reached a maximum load time of almost 60 seconds (but, the site doesn’t crash). Given that, we ask for even more of your patience, and discourage you from trying to refresh while the page loads.

- Caching: One way to minimize page load time is to cache the pages you’ll be visiting ahead of time. You can cache the pages by clicking on them and allowing them to load in advance of the launch time.

- Post-Launch Adjustment: One of the steps AndyMark took was to increase the amount of processing capability for launch day. Because this is only important during rush periods, they will be scaling back a few days after the second round of credits is loaded after Kickoff. This will result in the page being down for approximately two hours on Wednesday morning 1/8/14, 1AM Eastern, while this adjustment is made and will be scheduled for a time when few users are expected.

- Keep it Simple: Please do not use a bot, script, army of people, or other method to cause multiple order attempts for your team. While we appreciate and respect the ingenuity in doing so, it will likely reduce the quality of the experience for others using the site by bogging down the system.

- Prepare Your Account Information: Because you’re able to log in now, you can go in and set up your shipping address and other account information before your credits are issued. This will reduce the number of things you have to do to complete your order. If you’ve already done this, please log in to your account and verify the current information.

The printer lottery process will be executed as planned (http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/FIRST-Choice-Adds-Additives), with the lottery expiring on Tuesday morning, 12/31/13, 8am Eastern. If you’re planning to enter the printer lottery, you don’t have to log on right when FIRST Choice opens on Sunday as there’s no advantage to placing your order on Sunday afternoon vs. waiting until Sunday evening or even Monday.

AndyMark is planning to publish a whitepaper to provide more detail what happened and the steps that have been taken to improve the site. Once that’s published, we’ll let you know.

We thank you again, and sincerely, for your tolerance, patience, support, offers to help, and empathy.

3ET/12PT on Sunday. Just in time for the late NFL games! (Go Packers!)

[magnets]

Cool! It also looks like AndyMark has fixed the certificate errors too. :]

Is there a plan for a pre-launch test again, or are we just going for it?

[Bryce Paputa]

I hope that whitepaper gets published before kickoff so I actually read it...

[orangemoore]

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/bog-FIRST-Choice-Take-Three



3ET/12PT on Sunday. Just in time for the late NFL games! (Go Packers!)

BEARS!!

[sanddrag]

It looks like the items are now spread across 5 pages rather than all on one page.

[Cory]

I hate to rain on the parade...but 13 seconds is the minimum load time? Seriously? That's like 56k modem slow.

[DonRotolo]

It looks like the items are now spread across 5 pages rather than all on one page.
When I look at the preview page, not logged in, it is all on one huge page, as before. Where are you seeing the 5 pages?

[Christopher149]

It is also in multiple pages for me at http://www.firstchoicebyandymark.com/en/everything

[DonRotolo]

Ah, OK.
Try this page: http://www.firstchoicebyandymark.com/en/newproducts

Clik on any item to go to the 'add to cart' page.

Edit: OK, when logged in, you automatically get redirected to the \everything\ page. Well, just cache the \newproducts\ page.

[Jon Stratis]

I hate to rain on the parade...but 13 seconds is the minimum load time? Seriously? That's like 56k modem slow.

I believe it says average, not minimum.

Working on websites professionally, I certainly agree with FIRST and AndyMark that striving for shorter load times could take ridiculous (and expensive) resources for what we really need. So it'll take you 10 minutes instead of 2 to finish your order. I would rather FIRST invested those resources into other areas (like regionals, growing the program, preparing the new control system, etc) than use them to strive for perfection on a system we'll each use for less than 30 minutes this year.

[geomapguy]

like regionals

Too bad they don't fund regionals

[Oblarg]

Didn't anyone else notice? Take three? Clearly a game hint. :P

On a more serious note, I don't quite know what to make of this:

Please do not use a bot, script, army of people, or other method to cause multiple order attempts for your team. While we appreciate and respect the ingenuity in doing so, it will likely reduce the quality of the experience for others using the site by bogging down the system.

They "appreciate the ingenuity?" Are they serious? I would have expected (and been much more pleased with) "we condemn the lack of sportsmanship and gracious professionalism in doing so." Then again, that they've yet to go to some sort of quasi-lottery system sort of indicates that they themselves don't really appreciate why people doing this is unfair/undesirable in a far greater capacity than "bogging down the system."

[Cory]

I believe it says average, not minimum.

Working on websites professionally, I certainly agree with FIRST and AndyMark that striving for shorter load times could take ridiculous (and expensive) resources for what we really need. So it'll take you 10 minutes instead of 2 to finish your order. I would rather FIRST invested those resources into other areas (like regionals, growing the program, preparing the new control system, etc) than use them to strive for perfection on a system we'll each use for less than 30 minutes this year.

I don't do this professionally but in 5 minutes of browsing Amazon's webhosting services it looks like you can pay $1000-2000 plus an hourly cost (a dollar an hour or so) based on utilization. I'm willing to bet Amazon can handle a few thousand people logging in at once and FIRST only has to pay extra for a few hours of high utilization (and let's be real... "high" utilization for Amazon is probably a lot more than 3000).

Maybe there's some reason that makes it not that simple... But historically FIRST has never been able to handle heavy website traffic in a fast and reliable manner.

[Foster]

They "appreciate the ingenuity?" Are they serious? I would have expected (and been much more pleased with) "we condemn the lack of sportsmanship and gracious professionalism in doing so."

I think they were trying to be nice. It's been stressful for everyone, so they appear to be putting a lighter touch out.

Besides, saying "you are not showing gracious professionalism" always starts a battle on what GP is, when it is, why it is, etc. etc. etc. You are not new mentor here, you know how thing can fling themselves into a downward spiral.

I don't do this professionally but in 5 minutes of browsing Amazon's webhosting services it looks like you can pay $1000-2000 plus an hourly cost (a dollar an hour or so) based on utilization. I'm willing to bet Amazon can handle a few thousand people logging in at once and FIRST only has to pay extra for a few hours of high utilization (and let's be real... "high" utilization for Amazon is probably a lot more than 3000).

Maybe there's some reason that makes it not that simple... But historically FIRST has never been able to handle heavy website traffic in a fast and reliable manner.

Bold text to highlight the point. It's never that easy. If it was that easy we would all have websites that could do 2.3 million hits per second.

Once again, these people are doing the best job they can manage. The season ends in April, that means you have May-November (7 months) to plan, design, build, implement, test and you too can be the 2015 FIRST Choice site.


A team of dedicated, smart people from AndyMark, FIRST IT, and the FRC community have been working to revise the FIRST Choice site so that it’s robust for when we launch.
Thanks for the heads up, and thanks for all the work into making this work for everyone.

[Oblarg]

Besides, saying "you are not showing gracious professionalism" always starts a battle on what GP is, when it is, why it is, etc. etc. etc. You are not new mentor here, you know how thing can fling themselves into a downward spiral.

I truly hope I'm not mistaken in thinking that claiming "using a bot to get as many of your preferred FIRST choice parts as possible is not GP" is a pretty tame, uncontroversial claim. My intent isn't to start a debate, it's to express disappointment in the attitude FIRST seems to be expressing towards actions I think betray the core values of FIRST.

[JohnSchneider]

I don't do this professionally but in 5 minutes of browsing Amazon's webhosting services it looks like you can pay $1000-2000 plus an hourly cost (a dollar an hour or so) based on utilization. I'm willing to bet Amazon can handle a few thousand people logging in at once and FIRST only has to pay extra for a few hours of high utilization (and let's be real... "high" utilization for Amazon is probably a lot more than 3000).

Maybe there's some reason that makes it not that simple... But historically FIRST has never been able to handle heavy website traffic in a fast and reliable manner.

First could probably get it for free if they asked...

[Tem1514 Mentor]

Would a team(s) really have more then one person login to FirstChoice to improve their chances of getting items?

[MrRoboSteve]

Getting web sites to scale is not a simple "pour on the horsepower" problem. If the solution was dropping a couple $000 at AWS or Azure to increase compute, they would have done it by now.

My previous comment (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1312560&postcount=12) on the scaling issues of this site still applies, particularly in light of the 'bot request from FIRST.

[Christopher149]

Just wanted to bump this back up, in light of it opening tomorrow at 3pm Eastern.

T-19 hours

[ttldomination]

Mmmmm, First Choice day. I can already taste the latency.

Everyone got your pages cached?

- Sunny G.

[nicholsjj]

Also note the new rule stating that all items in your cart for over an hour will be dropped. Good luck to everyone today and I hope that 3 is the magical number this year.

[JB987]

One can hope:)

[mistersands]

What is the approximate shipping cost for an average order of lots of small to medium parts (motors, screwdriver kits, solenoids, lazy susans, couplers, etc.) ? This is my first year as a coach. I have to put out the money up front and get reimbursed, so I'm worried about how much it might come to.

[geomapguy]

What is the approximate shipping cost for an average order of lots of small to medium parts (motors, screwdriver kits, solenoids, lazy susans, couplers, etc.) ? This is my first year as a coach. I have to put out the money up front and get reimbursed, so I'm worried about how much it might come to.


In past years it's been the AndyMark shipping costs so around $10

[DonRotolo]

Maybe $20 if you get a lot of heavy stuff. Shipping - especially ground shipping - is quite reasonable. Overnight is a different $tory!

OK, about 1 hour to go. Guess I'll go log in soon.

[seg9585]

Logged in now, pages are loading fast! Even on 4G hours away from civilization in the middle of the desert!

[Christopher149]

T-14 minutes. Here's to hoping we don't DDoS the site this time.

[Avrum Goldman]

If we delay any more, this will merge with the next batch of points!

Its a shame, because we were doing exercises over the holidays and were hoping to use these parts.

[Ken Streeter]

Well, with about 10 minutes to go until opening, the site is still lightning-fast -- during previous "takes" the site was already lagging significantly by this time.

Looks great so far!

[Whippet]

T-5 minutes. The website is running faster than ever. Great work, Andymark team!

[DonRotolo]

T-5 minutes. The website is running faster than ever. Great work, Andymark team!
+1. But the proof is in the pudding. We'll see what happens in 2 minutes.

[Andy Baker]

T-5 minutes. The website is running faster than ever. Great work, Andymark team!

Thanks, this is kind, but let's wait until it's T+15 or T+30 before we start celebrating.

Andy B.

[wilsonmw04]

t-0 and not credits. do i need to relog?

NEVERMIND!! working like a charm.

[rees2001]

and let the slowdown begin.




I still appreciate all of the hard work you guys put in this holiday season/. Your busy season hasn't really started yet!

[wilsonmw04]

and let the slowdown begin.

just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

[geomapguy]

Working beautifully

[Phyrxes]

I have credits but I can't get anything to load...yay?

[Nick1912]

In T+3 I have been able to put one product into the shopping cart, but still waiting for the next page to load to fill the cart, has taken 2 minutes so far.

[Cory]

Got in, got out, no problems. Good job AndyMark!

[Tem1514 Mentor]

Thanks, this is kind, but let's wait until it's T+15 or T+30 before we start celebrating.

Andy B.

Hey Andy any idea how many teams are going for the 3D printers?

[ttldomination]

Looks like it's working. The timers have begun and I can add items to my cart. The latency is significant (~60 seconds), but it appears to be working.

- Sunny G.

[wilsonmw04]

slow but it's working. Just like they said it would.

[waialua359]

We still have issues with loading and getting anything. Just really really slow. 5 minutes and still trying to get a classmate...:confused:

[magnets]

I can't get it and isitdownrightnow.com shows it's down too. :(

Back up @3:07, still slow, sometimes get 504 error. No luck yet.

[EFastring]

Now the race to enter in shipping info in a lagged system before the cart timer clears.

[JB987]

Got in, got out, no problems.

What did you guys get, Cory?

[EFastring]

And I'm done.

Good Job Andymark

[geomapguy]

Entering shipping info now

[Whippet]

One more item to put in and then it's checkout time! The site is working like a 254 robot!

[itsjustmrb]

1 thing in my cart and I cant get to the next screen to continue shopping, 6 minutes left in shopping cart timer :-(

[kellymc]

Success !!!

I received an order confirmation number, third times a charm....

[Kevin Kolodziej]

Logged in around noon (central), cached my pages. 2:00 rolled around, clicked add to cart, checkout, done. All in less than 5 minutes.

Great Job AndyMark and FIRST to get this resolved.

[Johnny_5]

Boom


Done


Nice job AndyMark!

[Nirvash]

Those Generator 3-Port Extension Cables went fast!

But otherwise working great!

[Cory]

What did you guys get, Cory?

cRIO and some solenoid breakouts.

[Cecil]

That feeling as you watch your cart timer tick away with a black spinning circle on the screen…

Great job, Andymark! Glad to see everything working!

[DiehardCybercard]

I can't get it and isitdownrightnow.com shows it's down too. :(

Please do not use sites like this to see that status of the website. That adds more traffic and load to the server. Thanks!

[Jim Wilks]

Worked good for me this time!

[AllenGregoryIV]

Logged in early and loaded all the pages, added items to cart at 2pm CST. Was checked out by 2:07.

Our Order
fc14-059 Talon SR (fc14-059) 55 1 55
fc14-098 Double Solenoid Valve Kit (fc14-098) 10 4 40
fc14-128 Plastic Pneumatic Fitting Pack (fc14-128) 5 4 20
fc14-095 7/16" Haydon Kerk Lead Screw (fc14-095) 5 2 10
fc14-114a DryLin® W, linear guide system, double rail (fc14-114a) 5 1 5
fc14-114 DryLin® W, linear guide system, guide carriage, assembled (fc14-114) 5 1 5
fc14-007 Strap Wrench,Multipurpose (fc14-007) 5 1 5
fc14-106 Pneumatic tubing, white (fc14-106) 5 1 5
fc14-055 Relief valve, 120 psi (fc14-055) 5 1 5

[Tungrus]

AndyMark folks, it was awesome!!! We were able to place order like breeze! THANK YOU.:]

[joelg236]

Got everything ordered and done. Finally everything worked flawlessly.

[cgmv123]

@FRCTeams: 124 #FIRSTChoice orders in the first 10 minutes #omgrobots
@andymarkinc: FRC Teams, once you've successfully ordered, please log off the site. Thank you!

[ronbaer]

Site ran a bit slow loading, but got our 6 items in the cart and completed the sale in 6 mins. AndyMark NICE JOB.

[Jim Wilks]

Those Generator 3-Port Extension Cables went fast!

Maybe the price had something to do with that?

[seg9585]

Done! Order processed by 12:10 PST! You're awesome AndyMark!
Got a couple solenoid valve kits, cordless screwdriver kit, various motors, battery connectors

[Bob Steele]

success smooth....
I had preloaded the individual pages I needed...
cRio, pneumatics
CONGRATS to the KOP team!!!

[Woolly]

1806 is currently checking out... and ... good to go!

[magnets]

Please do not use sites like this to see that status of the website. That adds more traffic and load to the server. Thanks!

Sorry, I totally forgot about that. All of a sudden, it's working really well! We're all set.

Thanks andymark!

[dwodrich]

Worked great for me, Thanks for working so hard to get this right.

[Qbot2640]

Order complete and confirmed at 3:11 - great job AndyMark!!

[geomapguy]

Nice Job AndyMark

Looking forward to Round 2!

Our order:
fc14-059 Talon SR (fc14-059) 55 2 110
fc14-060 Ring light (fc14-060) 10 1 10
fc14-072 PG188 GearMotor (fc14-072) 15 1 15
fc14-096 Indicator, rectangular, amber (fc14-096) 5 1 5
fc14-064 12" Lazy Susan (fc14-064) 5 1 5
fc14-044 Bushing Mount Miniature Toggle, SP, on-off-on (fc14-044) 5 1 5

[Joe G.]

Slow going, but got everything ordered.

[Nick1912]

Just got our confirmation, took 12 minutes. We purchased a cRio, a breakout board and compressor. A little slow, but it was expected. Great job AndyMark!

[Christopher149]

857 managed to pick up a pair of Talons. Site was slow to get to checkout, but once there, ticked along smoothly (if a tad slowly).

[Renee Becker-Blau]

Done!

Thanks AndyMark, I hope the Renny Express Delivery method is quick to deliver. ;)

[DonRotolo]

Perfect! Yes, a little bit slow, but reasonable and (yay!) 100% success.

[MooreteP]

15 minutes start to finish.

Thanks AndyMark and FIRST and all mentors for our patience and perseverance.

Now, about that game hint…….

And where's the encrypted manual?

:)

[Whippet]

Team 4301 is done and the site ran smoothly, if a bit slow.

Our order:

2X Talon SR
2X Cordless Screwdriver Kit
2X Adjustable wrench
2X Locking pliers

Again, congratulations, Andymark, on a job well done!

[ttldomination]

Out in about 15 minutes, latency was unnerving, but in the end, it all worked.

- Sunny G.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Got everything we wanted, smooth sailing. Thanks AndyMark!

[MrBasse]

I hope everything worked for us, didn't get an order confirmation. It just hung up on the submit order page, but when I clicked submit it told me my cart was empty. Our credits went away, so I hope it worked!

[IndySam]

Took a while, but we got what we wanted. Thanks AndyMark.

[Steven Smith]

Woop! Got everything on our high priority list (2x talons, compressor, Festo kit).

Obviously, great work Andy and team on getting your issues resolved well enough to process orders.

One note, I had a few issues trying to enter the country/state combination for billing. It would keep trying to jump around on the list, display the wrong list for the choice, etc. I would imagine that if the selection of a country was resulting in a server call for information, the number of users could cause this to behave erratically. This was on a Chrome browser by the way.

Perhaps for next go around, this could be an area to optimize? It took ~3 minutes before I could get "United States - Texas" entered, and I was pretty worried about timing out the shopping cart.

Thanks for all your hard work!

[Coach Norm]

Success.

Thanks AndyMark and FIRST for this opportunity.

FIRST class.

[mwibbels]

Andy

System worked great today - thank you for setting the bar for grace under pressure - really appreciate you and your team's work. We are looking forward to building with the cRio, pneumatics solenoids, and the transmissions - the flexibility of FIRST Choice is really great!

Thank you,

Mark

[Gary Dillard]

I gotta admit a little stress as I watched the countdown clock ticking down below 5 minutes on the final checkout pages, as I stepped through the steps and it didn't refresh when I submitted responses. All in all looks like the available variety and quantities this year made for a pretty good spread. We went for another cRio and a 9403 module, and 2 van door motors (love that motor, wasn't sure how easy they would be to find outside of FIRST choice).

[Kevin Ray]

AHHH, that was better :) Got another cRIO for the new beta bot. Happy Camper.

[itsjustmrb]

I have 5 credits available, but when I try to add something for 5 credits, it tells me not enough credits to add parts...did anyone else have this problem?

[sanddrag]

Took about 17 minutes to get 7 items and check out, but I got (almost) everything I wanted, and finished the order successfully.

The one glitch I noticed was on the generator power cable. Although it said it cost "0" credits, I got the red bar telling me I did not have enough credits. I played with removing and adding things back, and it appeared to me that the generator cable actually costs "1" credit in the coding/database behind the scenes, but everything displayed to the user is "0" credit. The total in the shopping cart displayed to the user reflects a cost of "0" credits on that item, but the behind-the-scenes running total seems to indicate it actually costs more.

I noticed the cost of this item fluctuate between "0" and "1" credit several times over the last couple weeks, which I thought was odd.

Overall, a good shopping experience. Much improved over last year. Thank you AndyMark.

I'm really looking forward to the paper detailing what went wrong on the first two rounds, and what the fix was.

[itsjustmrb]

nevermind, once I deleted the free 3-port extension it worked fine.

[jwfoss]

all pneumatic parts for 558, thanks AndyMark for the hard work!

[Hadi379]

20 minutes and got all we were looking for! Just a tad bit slow, but works.

[mistersands]

Finished. Shipping came to $24.95 for basic ground.

As a new coach, I have to say that I'd prefer the old way of everyone getting the same kit. I had to rely on students from alst year (their rookie year) for what to order and who knows if it will be useful this year. I am anxious that we will end up without what we need. We are cannibalizing last years robot for electronics and anything else we can use. It wasn't worth saving to show off.

[DarrinMunter]

The site does not like Explorer 8. Had to relogin with Firefox.

[Chris Fultz]

everything seemed to work well.
we got the items we were hoping for.

[apples000]

It worked really well for us the second time (I kicked the power button on my computer the first time)

Nice job Andymark!

A few observations--

The first time through, there were 205 talons available and 683 cameras available. The second time through there were 219 talons and 696 cameras. Some people missed the checkout timer

The site was slow, but not that slow (less than 10 sec per page), so I don't think that teams missed the checkout timer because the site was too slow. Instead, I'll bet they missed it because they didn't have something (like a credit card) ready to fill out the shipping information.

Overall- much better than last year, and the site worked fine for us!

[EdenKlingenberg]

I hope everything worked for us, didn't get an order confirmation. It just hung up on the submit order page, but when I clicked submit it told me my cart was empty. Our credits went away, so I hope it worked!

Same experience here. Really hope our order went through... Other than this it has been a much smoother experience!

[Phyrxes]

Thank you Andy and company!

[Chris Fultz]

As a new coach, I have to say that I'd prefer the old way of everyone getting the same kit.

Many of these items were never part of the kit, or not part of the kit for anyone except rookies. Since many are donated, there are often not enough for everyone to get them in a kit, so FIRST cannot use them.

We try to go for the basics that we know we will use - a new classmate, pneumatic components, etc.

[brassardd]

It took me 13 minutes to order and at the end can't order because of a payment error. I won't tell you what I feel with that first choice stuff..!"$?%&*)(

[walterev]

Was able to order what we needed, but $50 for shipping a laptop? Guess I'm spoiled by Prime.

Excellent job on resolving the site issues guys.

[DonRotolo]

As a new coach, I have to say that I'd prefer the old way of everyone getting the same kit. Yes, but virtually every item in FIRST Choice is not available in the quantities needed to supply one to each team. That means you would get none of it.

Now which would you prefer?

[Jon Stratis]

Well worth the wait! Thanks for taking the time to get it right for all of us!

[sergioCorral842]

Got our items pretty smoothly. Nicely done Andy Mark!

[Tem1514 Mentor]

Yes, but virtually every item in FIRST Choice is not available in the quantities needed to supply one to each team. That means you would get none of it.

Now which would you prefer?

Shipping included :yikes:

[DarrinMunter]

Was able to order what we needed, but $50 for shipping a laptop? Guess I'm spoiled by Prime.

Excellent job on resolving the site issues guys.

I got a laptop too, and some other misc. things. But my shipping was $17
Are you using the standard ground shipping?

[seg9585]

Minor glitch Andymark: I got SIX confirmation emails with the same content. No big deal but will check CC to make sure I wasn't charged for shipping 6 times

[Mark McLeod]

I got a laptop too, and some other misc. things. But my shipping was $17
Are you using the standard ground shipping?
You live in Illinois...

I had trouble with IE8 as well. It wouldn't list what was in my cart after the first two items. I had to go through the checkout process a couple of times just to get a list of what it had in my cart.

I got tripped up by the generator cable, too.
I just thought that I'd help them get rid of those.

[sanddrag]

Minor glitch Andymark: I got SIX confirmation emails with the same content. No big deal but will check CC to make sure I wasn't charged for shipping 6 timesI didn't get any confirmation e-mail. Should I be worried?

[geomapguy]

I didn't get any confirmation e-mail. Should I be worried?

Same here

[Phyrxes]

No confirmation e-mail here either yet, glad I printed my invoices.

[Shmuel]

My team is getting this error message when we try to make an order:

Payment error: Error 594: Other Error

any idea what could cause this? The info all seems to be accurate.

[Andy Baker]

All,

If you are having any issues, the best thing to still do is document what you have in your cart (print screen), and then send an email off to firstchoice@andymark.com.

With regard to some rogue shipping prices, we did find one part that had an incorrect weight. The Igus slewing ring (fr14-100) had a weight listed at 21 pounds, where it is really 0.9 pounds. Thanks to Ken Streeter for pointing this out to us ASAP. Orders with this part in it will have their shipping re-calculated for a new price.

Sincerely,
Andy

[Michael Blake]

Ordering and payment went smoothly... used Google Chrome browser as directed.

THANKS, Andy! GREAT JOB!!

--Michael Blake

[walterev]

Thanks Andy,

I should have taken a closer look at the order to understand the cause.

Again, great job with FIRST Choice and thanks!

[DonRotolo]

I am speculating that if you got an order number, the e-mail would be redundant and lack of an e-mail would be no cause for alarm.

I hope...

[ksafin]

Did most teams in general jump on the 3D printer lotto or go for the parts?

Sad to see so many talons go so fast :(

[geomapguy]

Did most teams in general jump on the 3D printer lotto or go for the parts?

Sad to see so many talons go so fast :(

I'm guessing some teams went for the lottery???

[midway78224]

Nice job AndyMark.

Got everything we wanted. Work perfectly for us. Well worth the wait.

[dwodrich]

76 in the printer lottery so far, not sure how many have completed their order.

[Christopher149]

I'm kind of amused at what has sold out already, like a bunch of couplings, that generator extension cord, and that the Talons haven't yet (though at ~46, they aren't far from it).

[ksafin]

For teams who did the lottery: Which printer order did you pick and why?

We had some trouble deciding on which printer to get, wanted to hear some opinions.

[Mr_I]

Okay, what am I doing wrong?
I ordered several items (2 Talons, some solenoid stuff, and 2 encoders), all within 150 credits. Each time I picked something I got a screen that said "Shopping Cart Empty". When I clicked on the My Account menu link, I saw a link at the top saying "Shopping Cart (7)", but when I clicked that I got back to the "Shopping Cart Empty" page.

I can't seem to get to check-out.:eek:

[czeke]

Not sure if we made it, or not. Got timed out right after hitting "confirm". I logged back in, but it said that we had 0 credits available. So I don't know if we got what we wanted, or not.

[MrRoboSteve]

Here's what I've found. If you got to the cart and see that it's empty, click "Update Cart" and it shows the correct list of things.

I'm on IE10, FWIW.

[Christopher149]

Not sure if we made it, or not. Got timed out right after hitting "confirm". I logged back in, but it said that we had 0 credits available. So I don't know if we got what we wanted, or not.

Under your account info, there ought to be an orders page; do you have your order listed there?

[Mr_I]

Here's what I've found. If you got to the cart and see that it's empty, click "Update Cart" and it shows the correct list of things.

I'm on IE10, FWIW.

Don't see an Update Cart button. Will try on Firefox, FWIW. Thanks for the help!

[czeke]

Under your account info, there ought to be an orders page; do you have your order listed there?

No, it comes up empty, but when I go to check our credits, it shows that we have 0 credits

[Mr_I]

Problem Identified: IE10!

When I jumped to FireFox, order went through cleanly.

Thank-you stevep001 for pointing me in that direction (even if you didn't know you did!)

[Joe Ross]

With regard to some rogue shipping prices, we did find one part that had an incorrect weight. The Igus slewing ring (fr14-100) had a weight listed at 21 pounds, where it is really 0.9 pounds. Thanks to Ken Streeter for pointing this out to us ASAP. Orders with this part in it will have their shipping re-calculated for a new price.

Thanks, we did order the slewing ring, and our shipping was higher then we expected.

[nixiebunny]

It worked very well for me. The page loads were about 20 seconds at 3:05PM, but I never saw an error. Haven't received a confirmation email yet, though.

[Tem1514 Mentor]

So far there are 100 teams in the 3D loto but I had expected more.

Does anyone know how many teams have already used credits at FirstChoice for anything?

I ask as there maybe a large of teams that do not know FirstChoice has opened.

[Christopher149]

So far there are 100 teams in the 3D loto but I had expected more.

Does anyone know how many teams have already used credits at FirstChoice for anything?

I ask as there maybe a large of teams that do not know FirstChoice has opened.

Well, there were 321 orders (not necessarily teams) in the first 15 minutes (https://twitter.com/FRCTeams/status/417388577706635266). Also, 857's order was #1138.

[Gary Suter]

FIRST Choice was painful this year. Thanks for the Firefox suggestion. Hope the season runs smoother.

[nicholsjj]

FIRST Choice went great for us this year :ahh::) . We were able to get some much needed pneumatic parts as well as some Igus slides and CIM motors. For anyone worrying about no order conformation all you have to do is sign into FIRST Choice again and click on my account. From there you can click on orders to see an invoice. Our PDV from AndyMark also worked perfectly this year as well. Many thanks belongs to Andy and the rest of the AM and KOP Staff for making this work out so well.

[AJCaliciuri]

Team 1305 got everything on their wish list.


(1) Compressor
(1) cRio II
(2) 1/4"x1/4" Rigid Couplings


Took about 15 mins to checkout (using Chrome), but all in all, a pretty good experience.

I too did not receive a confirmation e-mail, but did save the invoice.

[Cory]

Well, there were 321 orders (not necessarily teams) in the first 15 minutes (https://twitter.com/FRCTeams/status/417388577706635266). Also, 857's order was #1138.

I think that means you had order #138. I had order #1000 at 12:03 and shortly thereafter others I know placed orders 1018 and 1041.

[Christopher149]

I got a confirmation email just now, so they probably will be coming for everyone.

[geomapguy]

I got a confirmation email just now, so they probably will be coming for everyone.

Yeah just got 4 :)

[Kevin Sevcik]

For teams who did the lottery: Which printer order did you pick and why?

We had some trouble deciding on which printer to get, wanted to hear some opinions.We went with the M2, Replicator2, Cube. I'm familiar with the MakerGear folk, having a custom Prusa Mendel I've been puttering on getting working for the past year or so. Replicator2 because it's atleast open-ish and you can use whatever filament you want. Cube last because of the printer-ink profit model and closed system. There might be a way around the over-priced filament, but there currently isn't a way around the software lock-in. Good slicing is the key to good printing, and there aren't as many adjustments available on the Cube software.

[cbale2000]

We went with the M2, Replicator2, Cube. I'm familiar with the MakerGear folk, having a custom Prusa Mendel I've been puttering on getting working for the past year or so. Replicator2 because it's atleast open-ish and you can use whatever filament you want. Cube last because of the printer-ink profit model and closed system. There might be a way around the over-priced filament, but there currently isn't a way around the software lock-in. Good slicing is the key to good printing, and there aren't as many adjustments available on the Cube software.

I basically agree with this for our choices too, overall the M2 looks like the best of the machines to me as far as build space and flexibility, in our case however we prioritized the Replicator2 over the M2 because the M2 came in a kit and the Replicator2 comes assembled. I wasn't confident we could get the M2 built and calibrated in time to actually do anything useful with it this season and figured the Replicator would be the simpler way to go.

Either way, both options are better than the Cube due to the restrictiveness of the software and material costs.

[czeke]

We got torched, our order failed to go thru and we had our 150 credits restored on Monday. Say good bye to the Talons.

[wilsonmw04]

I kept the PDF that was in my order section of my account. Is that still there for you?

[Dr.Bot]

Team 1305 got everything on their wish list.


(1) Compressor
(1) cRio II
(2) 1/4"x1/4" Rigid Couplings


Took about 15 mins to checkout (using Chrome), but all in all, a pretty good experience.

I too did not receive a confirmation e-mail, but did save the invoice.

Did you get a ship date yet? I ordered 1/7 but the only message I see is the order is 'processing,' the same since I placed order a week ago.

BTW my invoice was 4047 - I had little good to choose from. I am hoping the 'snow blower motor' can be incorporated into a ball launcher mechanism(ha ha).

[Jon Stratis]

Did you get a ship date yet? I ordered 1/7 but the only message I see is the order is 'processing,' the same since I placed order a week ago.

BTW my invoice was 4047 - I had little good to choose from. I am hoping the 'snow blower motor' can be incorporated into a ball launcher mechanism(ha ha).

Click into the order and see what it says. I had been looking at just the summary page as well, which still says processing for both of our orders (the initial 150 and the second 450), but the first arrived a week ago, and the second on Saturday! Clicking into them shows the shipping info at the bottom, although I never did get an email for shipping the second one...

[Tuba4]

Did you get a ship date yet? I ordered 1/7 but the only message I see is the order is 'processing,' the same since I placed order a week ago.

BTW my invoice was 4047 - I had little good to choose from. I am hoping the 'snow blower motor' can be incorporated into a ball launcher mechanism(ha ha).


I ordered for Team 63 at 4pm Kickoff Day. My order showed as shipped on 1/11. It is scheduled to arrive 1/15. Given the massive amount of orders and the weather related shutdown of Indiana, I think they did a great job of packing and shipping!!!

[MechEng83]

So, There are a few things I have to say about FIRST Choice this year:

The website issues were horrible and quite unexpected, considering the learnings from last year and the beta test this year.

For the 2nd round of points, we managed to get our order completed on Kickoff day after about 30 minutes of waiting for page loads and refreshes.

They have a big clear warning across the top saying you need to refresh if using Internet Explorer, and they're not kidding. Important info like my order history page wouldn't show up unless I refreshed it.

And now for the final story:
Like many of you, I never got a shipping notification for our order, but when I checked on Saturday, the website showed the order having shipped on Thursday and Delivered on Friday. Sunday when I finally got the package in my hands, it seemed a lot smaller and lighter than I was expecting, considering we ordered one of the 3D printers. Turns out, AndyMark FORGOT to ship our 3D printer. :mad: It wasn't checked off on the packing list, and it sure wasn't in the box.
Late Sunday night (around 10 pm) I emailed them explaining what I had on my end and asked what was up, expecting a response some time on Monday. 3 minutes later I get a response explaining how the printers normally ship and a promise to look into what might have happened to our order in the morning. How's THAT for customer service?!? :D They checked, and sure enough, it was still sitting in the AndyMark facility. I hear it's been shipped now and am looking forward to getting it soon.
Any company can run into issues like this, but I continue to be impressed by how quickly responses to inquiries come and how easy the staff there is to work with to resolve an issue.