FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)
 

Taken from the FRC Blog, 12/10/12: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...T-Choice-Issue and http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...-Issue-Part-II

Part I
Part II
"Our lesson here can be useful to all: test systems under a wide variety of circumstances, and test them hard!" - That certainly is true!

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

Wow. That really bites for the teams who fall under this category. My wishes to all the teams who are affected by this and hopefully it does not affect them too much.

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

Einstein 2012 anybody?

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

Most likely all the Talons, specifically when they were "restocked" :(

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

Wrong solution. All orders should have been cancelled as soon as the problems became apparent (which by all accounts was quite early in the process), and the ordering rescheduled on another date. There is no urgency to these orders at this early date and there was ample time for a re-do. Complete fairness to all teams should be paramount and worth whatever difficulties there would have been in rescheduling the process.

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

I completely agree. Given the fact that I was sitting trying to connect for a good solid half hour before I could get in, then quickly build a cart (as there were hardly any quantity limits), then realize that half my cart went out of stock is super frustrating.

In my mind cancel it all. Try again. Realize that they system you created was not ready for prime time and try again. And while you are at it.. add some basic quantity limits on some of the items. (ahem- talon) Allow a good plurality of teams to get the option to purchase the item rather than let a few teams hoard all the parts. In my mind the PDV was aimed to help fill out your KOP not to stock up on only a single component!

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

I would love this solution...

(primarily because the urgency of the situation wasn't known to the people behind our TIMS account, who never made an order...)

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

Yes, Please! We were excited to get 2 talons (thinking they were still in stock). Especially because we had been considering our budget and our current necessity for more motor controllers. I read some posts on the forums of teams buying 6+ Talons. Stocking up is a good idea (especially at such a price) but it would definitely make more sense to put a quantity limit on such high demand goods.

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

Keep in mind there is a distinct difference between the PDV and FIRST Choice.

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

Ah, me and the other team leadership begged our teacher to let us out of class to go order things off FIRST Choice (Luckily it was Computer Science and the teacher is a team supporter). We ran over to our robotics team teacher sponsor, barged into her class and got her to login -- "Ohhhh! I saw that earlier but didn't see anything interesting!" she said!

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

LOL, that's the best visual ever. "YOU HAVE TO STOP CLASS, FIRST CHOICE IS OPEN WE NEED TO ORDERRRRRRRR" ::rtm::

Teacher: "what?"

:D

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

That is literally what happened. Me and a group of 3 other students wearing robotics T-shirts BURST into the room out of breath and (somewhat loudly I'll admit) said "We need to log into FIRST Choice NOW".

It all started back in Computer Science -- I was browsing the Chief Delphi forums wishing that we knew the login when I saw that Talons were going for 6 and cRIO's for 9, we knew we had to take extreme measures. It was worth the loss of instruction time for sure though.

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

LOL, I can see you were being REAL productive in CS - lucky for you, your teachers like you. ;)

Priorities, you have them. Please tell me you didn't need to take the same measures when it came to registering for regionals. ;)

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

I'm glad to know I wasn't the only person to do this today.

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

While I'm not advocating (or insulting) this response, but I will point out that according to the FIRST Choice thread, some orders have already shipped. I suspect this was to ensure AM could ship all 2,600 orders in time. I can't confirm the accuracy of this personally, but if true it does complicate opportunities to change the approach now.

Addition thought -
What I do intend to do, and I know it's not much, is ask FIRST to relax the 2013 BOM accounting rules so that teams can count these as Kit of Parts (free) even though we couldn't actually purchase them this way. I certainly don't look forward to spending the additional several hundred dollars we'll likely have to, and can't imagine the impact it will have on lower-budget teams, but at least we won't also be handicapped on the BOM.

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

Just got an email saying we lost our 3 talons and Right Angle Drill Kit :/

But hey, those aren't irreplaceable. Besides, glad to have such a phenomenal program where we can get amazing products for free anyway.

It beats buying everything we DID manage to get (cRIO, digital sidecar, battery, AXIS camera, classmate netbook & more)

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

Anyone know what time the restock occurred at? From reading over the First Choice thread it seems like at about 12:25.


Curious, what time was your order?

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

12:25 & 12:28

We made two separate orders. Stocks were jumping around so crazily we decided to lock in what was in stock before moving on to the volatile products - locked in some items with our first order and proceeded to try and get the rest of our goodies in the 12:28 order.

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

Does anybody know if unused credits will be kept for use after kickoff when FIRST Choice opens for game-specific items.

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

The opportunity to blow the whistle was early in the process when the problems were apparent. Obviously if they have already made shipments (perhaps another mistake) it is too late to redo things.

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

Well its not really a kit of parts any more, is it?
Its more of a scratching, clawing, begging activity.
Just because FIRST is not meant to be fair, does not mean that we need to go out of way to make it unfair.
I am not sure what they should call this new activity, but the kit of parts is long gone.

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

I don't like the rat race aspect, either. But I'll keep this system rather than going back to receiving a kit of parts consisting largely of items that we won't use. Having more choice in the system makes it possible to more efficiently allocate donated resources where they're likely to get used.

Consider it from a sponsor end, too - they can donate 80 or 800 of an item instead of needing to donate 2600, and they have a better idea that it's going to get used this way.

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

FIRST Choice is certainly good... until you look at the competition done for parts, and how many teams can't get what they actually want from it (How GP is it to order a ton of a particularly "in demand" item?). I'd much rather have a process that made obtaining parts a little more fair. Have 2-3 "rounds", where each round consists of a week for teams to indicate their desires. At the end of the week, FIRST distributes items (or reserves them) for teams based on limits determined by the demand for each limit. In other words, if they have 10000 Talons, and 2500 teams each want several, then a practical limit of 4 is created for that round. At the end of the rounds, ship out the entire reserved order for each team.

At least, it would end the mad rush at the start, the sellouts, and give FIRST time to handle any issues that crop up.

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

Perhaps we can call it the "Gaget-Grab".

It can go along with "Regional-Rush"...

-Mr. Van
Coach Robodox

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

After reading through the FIRST Choice thread on CD I thought that the restock was around 12:20 as well.
However my team (2583) placed our order at 12:03 and we just got an email saying we did not receive the talons or the digital sidecar.
On CD there are posts saying that the talons went out of stock at 12:18 and I was under the impression that this was the original stock and not the fake restocked talons.

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

It was certainly "restocked" after this: we were able to order at ~12:30 but won't be getting them. However, I don't believe the blog indicates that this was necessarily an isolated incident. Sorry you didn't get them despite being able to get in immediately!

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

Quantity Limits is a good idea for high in demand goods, but I feel an even better solution could be a slower release of credits. If each team was given say 10 credits each hour over the course of ten hours (or 10, 20, 30, 40 over four hours), it would prevent one team from snatching all of the in demand goods, and it would mean that teams would only be rat racing for the items prioritized as more important, which likely varies from team to team. This would also reduce the problem of many TIMS main and alternate contacts being in the middle of lectures or business meetings when FIRST Choice opens because as long as they go in during the first hour they will likely get their most important item. Thoughts?

Edit: Although, this incurs extras shipping costs for multiple orders, which could prove very problematic, maybe reservation of items instead of placing an order as an option during the first day/few hours? I realize this is more complicated on AndyMarks end, but could probably make life a lot easier on teams, and if problems did occur, they would likely be easier to debug with smaller initial orders. Again, thoughts?

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

I can cancel my day for an hour. I cannot cancel my entire day or week. I want to do this once and be done with it, whether I get what I want or not.

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

Anyone else getting billed the same amount for shipping on now drastically reduced orders? I have a question out to AM about that.

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

What if we could pick ten items per week during this time before 2013 and have all of the parts requested ship to our kickoff locations, having one big shipment instead of individual ones for each team?

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.

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

I just got an email from AM confirming shipping, it includes everything I thought I ordered. I ordered at about 12:15. System was slow to add items to the cart to move to check out, but I otherwise had no issues. (Once I got that one letter in the password capitalized.)

Wetzel

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

Lucky you...

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

for me the same!!! i placed my order at 12:03
will be the first year with a classmate after someone stole our in Brazil in 2009!:yikes:
we took 1 piece of each item (except 560 video cards that took 6 for our computers) so that other teams could have the same chance as us!:)

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

I didn't intend that as bragging, I just wanted to put that data point out there. From my view, the server(s) help up and didn't fully meltdown, if they might have slowed a bit, which is a good thing. That said, even without the restocking issue (critical error), the mad dash plan to grab things was not a good one. It was additionally hurt by the nonsensical point values assigned to things.

7 credits
Right Angle Drill Kit
Sonar Sensor
3" lazy susan

8 credits items
battery connector
Solenoid valve kit (24v)
Crank ratchet
Assorted Terminal Bag
Compressor

9 credits
2' length of 6AWG wire
Circular Saw
cRIO

10 credits
Wire Stripper
DB37 ribbon cable

How do these make sense?

Wetzel

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

It wasn't taken as bragging, Wetzel. I was just trying to communicate that order success really was a matter of luck;)
And now I am off to round two of the mad dash to replace the two tallons that were part of a second order from12:09 yesterday that got dumped...

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

I do agree with Wetzel that appropriate, proportional pricing of items would do wonders to cut back on the "piranha effect" for the big ticket items.

Make the pain proportional to the prize.

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

I understand that FIRST and AndyMark have good, honest, gracious and professional people working for them. However, the system that has been put into place is unreasonable.

Why is my $5000 entry fee worth potentially hundreds and hundreds of dollars less than another teams? HOW DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

I've been doing this for long enough to remember the days when we had a limited part list and had to order only from Small Parts. While I'm not suggesting that we return to those days, I do think that there must be a better system for distributing the items that make up the kit - a system that goes back to trying to level the playing field a bit instead of making for the quick and the hungry.

I believe the major issue is the credit value unbalance. As has been pointed out, some items have a credit value nearly SIXTY TIMES greater than other items - and these high value items have just about the lowest total quantity available. This just makes for a lottery-like situation.

If teams were given 500 credits and the right angle drill was 170 credits, the classmate was 200 credits, talons 60 and CIMs 27 credits, would there be a mad rush for classmates? Possibly, but at least teams wouldn't feel so bad that their credits were now worth considerably less after the high-value, low-quantity items were gone.

Teams might actually wait until partway into the build season and order items they are going to actually use on their robot if credits matched street price values.

Correct the credit value and much of the problem will be lessened.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

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

I hope no one interprets this post as bragging, I just want to point out how messed up this all is.

We were one of the teams locked out for 10 minutes, then we got in. I was able to get $2100 in retail value worth of items give or take.

A few minutes later the value had dropped substantially. It's ridiculous that the first few teams can make out so well, and everyone else is picking at scraps. Sure, there are some high dollar items left, but what if the team doesn't need that?

I won't throw a new idea out, as the draft + open selection ideas posted already are great.

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

I guess I'm an outlier.

I realized that every team was trying to get new "free" items from FIRSTChoice.

We picked some key items we may use, got what we thought was a fair amount (2 batteries, 2 Anderson connectors, 1 classmate, 1 compressor, 2 gearmotors, 2 more gearmotors, 1 compressor, 1 cRIO), and got out of the way.

Knowing that the supply was limited on the items available, and knowing that not all teams had the luxury of having somebody available to log on at 12:01, and I want to make this clear,

the thought never crossed my mind to hoard items, select items intending to resell them for profit, or snatch items away from other teams before they had the chance to get them.

Honestly, I'm having trouble with the notion that fellow FIRSTers would act in such a way. It's appalling.

To borrow a phrase from another well-published mentor, I'd consider somebody who would act like that to be a dishonorable cretin.

Maybe I do have a rose-colored-glasses view of the world; maybe I've read too much into the notion of Gracious Professionalism; maybe I've been wrong all along and there is no room for altruism in FRC.

Maybe it is all about the robots.

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

I doubt any team specifically grabbed items so others couldn't with no intention of using them themselves.

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

This is the primary problem I see right now. Not only are teams not getting anywhere close to the same value from FIRST Choice, some of the components are used on robots (talons, CIMs, etc) and some aren't (graphics cards, drills, wire strippers). This boils down to huge differences in team expenses for the season (real money dollars), AND large discrepancies in cost accounting for the robot budget limit.

Hopefully the cost accounting rules help remedy this in some way to make it more fair. I don't think it's right that a team that was able to get in and get 11 talons ($660 worth of robot parts) and puts them all on the robot would get all of those speed controllers counted as KOP costs and not towards the $3500 limit*, whereas a team which was only able to get graphics cards and wire strippers spends their own money on the same 11 speed controllers, and has to count that against the $3500 cap because it wasn't part of their "KOP", but non-robot items were.

IMO, the purpose of the kit of parts is to give teams a fair and solid foundation to start building their robots. The current setup does not do that. I have seen several good ideas for how to remedy the problem in the future, but if parts have already shipped, there is little that can be done to remedy the current situation.

I would like to see an improved FIRST Choice setup for the post-kickoff round, with re-stocked high demand components like motors and speed controllers. I would also like to see the robot cost rules account for teams who had to purchase critical items like Talons without FIRST Choice credits due to system overloads. It's only fair.

*This is based on previous year's rules for cost accounting

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

I highly doubt there were many, if any, teams who looked at this as a chance to make a profit through resale or a chance to hoard pieces they had no intention of using.

That said, I would completely understand a team looking at the items available and saying "We know we'll have a 4-motor drive train this year, lets pick up 4 Talons for it", or "Our programming team really needs 2 new laptops for use at competition, lets pick up two classmates". This way, they're looking at what they'll need, as well as the value proposition for their team. If you know you need to get something anyways, you're going to go after the highest cost items on FIRST Choice you know you need, and simply buy the lower cost items later.

The problem is, if there are only 1000 Talons, and you have 250 teams that log in and purchase 4 each for their drive train, then you have another 2250+ teams who can't get any.

You end up with the same results we have today, without any of the intentional malice or profit-making attempts.

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

I don't think most teams were "hoarding" to resell or be a detriment. 971 regularly builds robots with 10+ motors that all require speed controllers, and we usually build two robots. If I see no limit posted for items and the price is only 9 credits, I'm going to get as many as I can because I know I will use them all, and it represents a significant monetary savings (both from a team operating standpoint and robot budget). There's nothing malicious about it, just trying to make the best use of resources.

If any teams did hoard with the intent of reselling, then yes, shame on them. But I suspect no one really anticipated just how quickly the high value items were going to sell out (although most of us probably could have told FIRST it would happen if they didn't put a limit and had that low quantities).

Note: 971 wasn't able to get in yesterday at all due to the <1000 bug, so we didn't get any of the hot items.

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

The easy fix for this is to make everything on the BoM count towards the budget at the fair market value (Talons = $60 and cRIO = $525 etc). So no logger will the KoP pieces be considered "freebies" interms of the budget contraint on teams. If this was to happen I think it would be in the best interest of Teams and FIRST to increase the budget limit to something more reasonable then $3,500.

Also I think this will be good to give team, especially the students, a more accurate idea of what a FIRST Robot cost. This cost is still missing the labor of assembly and fabrication.

-Clinton-

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

While we are not a sub 1K team, we just were not able to get in. By the time access was restored, all the items we needed/wanted were gone!

Would it have been nice to have quantity limits in place so all teams had a reasonable chance to get what was needed? You bet!

Would it have been nice to have enough stock on hand to meet the demand created by the lack of quantity limits? Absolutely!

Are we going to whine because we didn't get anything we were looking for? Not a chance!

Welcome to the real world where ideologies like Gracious Professionalism and level playing fields collide with human nature the drive to win. This is just the hand we were dealt this year. It is just another obstacle the team will figure out how to overcome.

We are hanging on to our credits so they can be combined with the additional credits released after Kick-off in the hopes that the stock of the parts we need has been replenished and we can get not only what we want/need, but also get the things that are dictated by the game play strategy we come up with.

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

Aside from the leading zeros error (which is a result of insufficient testing -- all teams experience this somewhere), I think the problems boil down to a lack of limits on parts in FIRST Choice and an inconsistent $ to credit ratio (individual team value functions aside).

Having some items where the $/cr ratio is 40+ and others where it is around 1 creates an imbalanced supply/demand.

My team opted for a right angle drill, axis camera, and several solenoid valves among a few other things because those were high value items which we needed and/or very likely going to use. We actually did not order the talon controlers, even though we plan on buying some to test out because their $/cr ratio was only 6.56 vs nearly everything we ordered, which was over $8/cr.

Having used 9 motors on the previous year's robot, I certainly understand the desire of teams to get as many motor controllers as possible. I think 4 is a reasonable limit for "free"

I'm not in favor of a lottery approach to distribution, as this can really mess up a team's flow of ordering parts that will work together in a system. Fairness is a term that gets thrown around in many different arenas, but fair to one person may not seem fair to another. All teams receive the same point value, but their $ value is not the same. Maybe it's not fair that some teams can just buy items they didn't get while other cash-strapped teams have to make due. Is it fair to pull back an order that was "shipped" to a team who had no control over other team's ordering issues?

tl;dr
make the point values correlate to real prices. put limits on items.

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

This is exactly what most teams think. They are not hoarding, they are just trying to get the best value for items they MAY use. This "fair amount" comes out to about $1000 worth of items. (And some teams were able to order over twice that value for the same number of credits.) Right now, however, looking at what remains available, I think teams would be hard pressed to find a value of $300 of items that they will actually use this year. (Baring the offhand chance you need to outfit a computer lab with video cards...) Far less than those who were able to order early.

I'm not suggesting that ANYONE should have done anything different in terms of ordering what they thought they needed or was valuable - the system was set up to encourage that. The problem is that it leaves many, many teams out in.

My suggestion is this:
1. Make the credit value reflect street price/value to FRC teams (discounts are great, but no need to make a $200 Classmate the same credits as a $15 wire stripper)

2. Let the system "go live" one week after ship date. This is to discourage teams from ordering stuff on spec.

3. Include the cost of the items in the BOM (and raise the total allowance if necessary).

- Mr. Van
Coach, Roboox

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

Regardless of the issues with FIRST Choice, this is still way better than how things used to be way back when. I'm just glad to get some useful equipment and parts for FREE.

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

I suspect if the records were released you'll find that the talons were gone nearly instantly. Any team who wanted some was likely to grab a big chunk of them. Especially with no limit. We could easily use 20-25 in a season. In fact we purchased that many a couple weeks ago from AM.

Edit: Just got another email saying my second order has shipped, so clearly AM is still trying to catch up with all the orders.

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

Hummm... Way back when (not quite so far as when you had to return the control system each year, but for many, many years) we used to get a full control system, 4 victors, several spikes, numerous solenoid valves, a very good (if slightly large and heavy) compressor, 2 robot batteries, charger, servos...

FIRST Choice is not FREE. You can only access it if you have paid your registration fee. Yes, these items are donated, but so are many of the items that actually get shipped in the KOP. In fact, it is my understanding that according to all of the rules, the FIRST Choice items are an extension of the KOP, such as it is, and we have all paid for access to them. The problem is that it is far from equal access at this point.

I do have confidence that both FIRST and AndyMark will improve the system.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

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

In an Email from Andymark the Talons when to an OUT OF STOCK state in 16 minutes!!!

Just like many other teams, those of us in Ontario need to save every little bit we can due to the current problems with the Province and Teachers. Losing out high demand and costly items from First choice is going to make it very hard to field an competitive robot this year. Why you ask, because the teachers are now on work to rule which leaves the running of the team by outside mentors that's assuming the school admins will agree to it.

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

Teams adversely effected by Inventory Management Issues should contact frcparts@usfirst.org.

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

Keeping in mind that the previous control system was much cheaper than the current cRIO-based one, and FIRST was significantly smaller as well. Such things were much more feasible back then.

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

Perhaps FIRST will take some action for teams <1000 who were unable to log-in to FIRST Choice?

Our team had a plan going in that included 4 Talons plus a Digital Sidecar, but those items were gone by time we successfully logged-in at 9:20 PST.

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

Yeah it would appear some teams got the shaft...but what can they do?

The only thing I think FIRST can do is make every item from FIRST Choice free for every team in the BOM.

Peyton

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

That doesn't really help all teams though... the teams that don't have the funds to purchase some of the items that were available through FIRST Choice are the ones who will feel this the most. It doesn't matter if it becomes free in the BOM if you could never afford it in the first place.

FIRST is taking steps to make things right... we lost half of our order to the restocking issues, and FIRST is offering help with some common items. I got this email the other day after I responded with having troubles with the system:


Hello Mr. Basse,

Thank you for your response. Again, please accept our apologies for your frustrations.

To compensate, we offer your choice of one of the following items at no cost to you (dollar or credit): Power Distribution Board, E12 Classmate, 4-slot cRIO chassis (no modules), battery, or Rev B radio. Due to our limited inventory, we can only accommodate so many requests of particular items. For that reason, please let us know your first and second picks. We'll do our best to give you your first pick and the item will ship for free (FedEx Ground or track-able USPS).

Take your time discussing this with your team, but please let us know your decision by January 25, 2013 (but if you let us know by December 28, you should have it by Kickoff).

Thank you for your understanding.

Kate

---
Kate Pilotte


Kudos to FIRST for taking steps to lessen the burden on teams that were adversely effected. I am happy to be a part of an organization that recognizes the need that teams have and respects the entry fee that we all pay does indeed need to be respected. With that said, we will take the cheapest option on the list because it is what we need. We would have suffered without a battery to make it through the season, and it seems like a small price for an item but when $70 buys you two batteries and that is a around 10% of your budget... I just hope this will result in less of a chance of me or our lead mentor footing the bill for our robot build personally again. With the way Michigan politics are going, I need to keep a close eye on my paychecks...

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

FIRST needs to do the opposite. They need to make it so that none of the FIRST Choice or KoP items are considered "free" in the BoM and raise the $3,500 budget constrain.

-Clinton-

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

FIRST is going above and beyond when they offer free items like that. It's great to work with an organization that not only acknowledges mistakes, but works so diligently to take responsibility for them and to correct them.

That said, I think we (the teams who are consumers of FIRST Choice) need to be careful in our complaints. I've seen many posts that are some variant of "we lost our order due to the restocking problem". That happened to me, too. But it is important to understand that we didn't actually lose an order, because we never had it. If the restocking problem had not occurred, the order would have been rejected to begin with. We only "lost" an order compared to our mistaken belief that we had an order.

It is possible (but I bet a careful analysis of the data would show this only happened to a few teams) that the restocking issue caused a loss in this limited scenario: You were considering ordering two items, one that is close to going out of stock, and one that incorrectly appears to have stock but is actually out. You only have enough credits to get one, and you choose the one that is actually out of stock, and that order is (incorrectly) accepted. By the time you find out that your order must be canceled, the other part has gone out of stock. You've lost out on that order. I'd be curious to find out how many teams actually experienced that.

Where some of us actually lost orders was due to not being able to log in for the first 10 to 15 minutes, so stock was gone before we had a chance to place the order. In that case, there is a reasonable possibility that we could have gotten a valid order in, had we been able to log in at the correct time. That happened to my team, and I have sent an email to FIRST (in response to Kate's email sent out yesterday). It will be interesting to see if they can do anything about it.

It's also been great to see all the constructive suggestions for a better system, on this and other threads. I bet we'll see a much improved FIRST Choice next year. Keep up the great work, everybody!

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

I think part of the problem was that items were not removed from stock when placed into a cart, only when the pay now button was clicked, causing items to jump out of carts. The items should be removed from available inventory as soon as it was placed into a cart. If items get dropped later and put back "on the shelf", then someone else has the opportunity to pick it up. I suspect this would be an easy way to reduce some of frustration faced by teams.

Wetzel

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

This method has it's own problems, of course. Specifically, when do you decide that someone isn't going to complete their order and empty their cart? You'd have to put some kind time limit on it, and a short one could be really frustrating. On the other hand, a long limit is going to cause a lot of confusion when Talons start coming back in stock 30 minutes after FIRST Choice opened. I don't think there's any good way to set things up with the current Black Friday rush philosophy. Any little tweaks are akin to arranging the shelves and aisles to minimize the injuries during the mob scene after the doors open.

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

But when you place an order and the order goes through, then gives you an invoice that has your full order included, and the next day you get an email that says you actually won't be receiving all the items you selected and paid shipping for... that counts as a "lost item" in my book. Again, I am frustrated, but I am not complaining. Yes I am disappointed, but also happy that things are being remedied.

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

http://d.pr/i/EJMP For reference on the old IFI cost.

Taken from http://web.archive.org/web/200801152...s.com/oi.shtml which was IFI's website in 2008, the last year we used that system. I haven't found a similar get started kit for the NI system (I only made a cursory look though).

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

I think the costs for the two control systems (IFI & NI) are pretty comparable.
Probably due to a FIRST RFP requirement.

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

Since realworld cRIO's for general purchase (basically the same specs as our cRIO-FRC2 4slot model is cRIO-9075) are CAD$1430, before you start putting modules in them? Yeah.

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

(responding to my own post, just to let everyone know what happened)

I got a response from Kate at FIRST (about the same time as my previous post, actually), and yes they are doing something about it for my team, as I'm sure they've done for others. I just want to publicly thank FIRST and AndyMark for their professional response to a tough situation. Just one of many reasons I love working with this organization.

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

Really? My Spanish teacher let me out 10 minutes early, and by the time I got to my Robotics teacher, it was 5 min. before 12. The teacher let me into TIMS, and I had the password 30 seconds after 12. (Not too bad).

By the time I had logged onto First Choice(which took several tries), 5 minutes later, the Talons, Sidecars, Classmates(which we needed - ours bit the dust), were gone. 12:15 Eastern. Thankfully we ordered a cRIO and a pair of batteries (ours was having problems last year), and some other components.

Apart from the mad grab for components, and the login issues, which have pretty much been covered, the only other thing I would change is to improve the cart. For one, the cRIO would not stay in our cart. Teams should be allowed to keep a hold of items in cart or allow the PDV to be used for shipping. We lost our talons and sidecar because I had to find someone with a credit card to pay shipping!