Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

My shipping cost actually INCREASED for fewer items. I also have a question in about this...as well as whether or not the new order placed (presumably) tomorrow with the refunded credits can be added to the existing order or if we're going to have to pay for shipping for two separate orders. :confused:

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

I'm glad to see that, so far, this discussion is mainly a constructive one.

I think the best system is a strict limit on the quantities of all items. 1000 talons donated? Then no more than 1 or 2 per team can be ordered.

Then, after kickoff, release the unused quantities so teams can go back and snatch them up with their remaining points.

This serves two needs that I see. Most of the teams should get a little of what they want. When teams go back after kickoff, they'll know what they need for the new game, and won't use points on unrelated items.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

Seconded. I realize the goal of this program is to give teams choice and stretch the available parts as far as possible, but this method is not working and is not the answer. A cut-throat, dog-eat-dog game of king-of-the-hill where you are at the mercy of a computer system which can't keep up and half the teams leave feeling cheated? That is no way to distribute these parts fairly. The competition should be on the playing field, not for your KOP. We all pay the same fee for the KOP and what we end up with should not be a matter of random luck. A system where one team hits the jackpot with 10X the parts value of another team because they had less random trouble with the website? That's wrong. I would prefer to have less with the old KOP system and feel fairly treated than to have a random possibility of more and end up feeling cheated.

Quantity limits and credit values which are proportional to the part value would go a long way to prevent what happened today. I can't decipher the logic of a system where a motor and a laptop computer are given the same value. If parts cost what they are worth there would be no hoarding and less scrambling for the exits. Imagine a store on Black Friday where everyone is given the same money to spend, everything in the store is the same price, and there are no limits. The ones who made it through the doors first and can run the fastest get 10 flat-screen TVs. The ones who were behind 2800 others trying to get through the doors 1 minute later get 10 pairs of socks. 6 weeks later they meet in a competition to see who was able to make the most of what they got.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

An item being marked as shipped usually just means that a shipping label has been printed, indicating the items were packed and the package is waiting next to the door for the UPS (or FedEx, etc) truck. Shipping companies usually come later in the evening and pick up all the packages in one go. Admittedly, unpacking everything would consume a lot of man-hours.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

I totally agree with this.
I'd rather have the 1 size fit all, where we can communicate with other teams to trade parts, rather than not get the same good deal....i.e....computer, as some other team.
The idea of the vouchers though are great, IF, we are guaranteed to get any of the items that are on the list of available items.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

Absolutely a make-sense great idea.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

We also had the Drill + Talons in our cart and ordered, however we lost them due to the re-stocking bug. We weren't able to get anything else either such as the cRIO/laptop/etc; our mentor ordered around 9:30 [PA time].

We might just load up on graphics cards and unload them somewhere.. might keep one or two for the CAD rig. Even though these cards aren't the CAD certified, they do help a lot and Solidworks [what i use] does utilize them. I have the 480GTX we got in 2011 running with 2 instances of SW on two monitors quite nicely.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

With regard to the Talons, here's one option that would be fair:

1) Cross the Road donates 480 Talons to FIRST.
2) FIRST Gives the Talons to AndyMark to sell in their store.
3) AndyMark increases the amount of their product donation voucher by $11.

480 x 60 / 2600 = ~11

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

At this point I would gladly trade in many of my credits for some more PDV. Even after the log in issues of being a sub-1000 team I had a cart with most of what I wanted just to have it disappear while checking out. Then to get the e-mail stating that I didn't get what I thought I got. I am very disappointed in the way things happened.

I do feel that giving teams 100 credits and have a mad rush for parts was another mistake. Give us ~40 to make initial grabs yesterday and then the give us 160 after kickoff. Keeps teams in check for those awesome deals. Some teams got in and got a ton of their top choices and some of us were left with the scraps. I feel like the other 100 after kickoff will not be worth much now. I also wonder if I will be able to get things that were my second and third choices now. I used the credits I had to get things I didn't get? I skipped on things I would have ordered but didn't because I thought I was getting something else. I just hope my team is not left paying for shipping of a bunch of stuff that will just be "stuff".

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

Words cannot describe the absolute feeling of WHAT I have right now.

1. Who wrote this test plan?
2. Why is the login process for teams < 1000 different than >= 1000?

Trying to be positive - a great take away from this is always thoroughly test your code

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

My guess is that <1000 teams start with a leading zero, which somehow caused an issue with their log-in process. Team "0999" vs. "1000."

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

Wow.

I got a response back saying they were adjusting shipping charges on all these orders, and lo and behold, mine was reduced to something a whole heck of a lot more reasonable. Hopefully they get yours all sorted out as well!

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

It's still a string comparison... Now, maybe if the need for leading 0's was not articulated to teams I could understand it.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

Was it not a a drop down list? No input by teams.

Re: FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

Which would be the problem. If the drop down list has 57 and the database has 0057, a string compare is going to fail and all <1000 teams will be locked out of the system until something is switched around to correct the mismatch.

In other news, we just got an email back from AM about what we missed as well. I'm sad about missing the batteries and right angle drill. Amazingly, we still nabbed a pair of CIMS, though. Said email also said the "restocking" bug was more like a rollover. When the stock on an item ran out, something happened that rolled the stock back over to the original value, or something like that.