FRC Blogged-FIRST Choice-Liquidation
 

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...ce-liquidation

I don't see why things such as the photosensors and terminals can't just be put into next year's FIRST choice, assuming extremely similar items will be there next year(considering they've been there nearly every year). But this is a welcome addition that enables you to get some stuff that you would otherwise have to eliminate from your FIRST Choice list due to limited points.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Quantities too low? Discontinued parts?

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

My, that Igus slewing ring looks purty.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Don't snatch the last one up! Also, I am pretty sure this was out of stock in FIRST Choice this year. Maybe they got an untimely delivery?

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Are we really doing this again? Isn't this the same system that got people so upset last year. I know it's not the real FIRST Choice but it's still just who has the quickest mouse. Especially with no quantity limits per item at all and currently no way for anyone to know how many of any of the items they have in stock. At least not yet, they could post item quantities on the 19th.

If I'm ordering and I think 3 IR sensors is reasonable but then find out they only had 10 to give away maybe that is too many for one team.

Also how are these items going to be considered for next year's robot? Are they kit items (doesn't seem like it), are they previous years' kit items, or are they some other category? Seeing as some of these parts are discontinued and would then be no longer available to all teams, they wouldn't fit the 2013 definition of a COTS part.

I like this idea, just a little unsure on some of the details. I think as long as the people ordering actually use the items they get for their team and they just don't sit on a shelf, it's a great idea.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Too bad the stuff couldn't be auctioned off to teams, and the proceeds donated to charity.....

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Fastest mouse it is....:mad:

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

This is what I heard when I read that.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

This looks worse than First Choice(did I really just type that? :confused: ). There are no credits, no order limits, and no team #id login or password. I don't think someone has to be Yoda to figure out what's going to happen on the 19 if nothing changes unfortunately.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Oh not again.....

Am I really going to have to stop teaching in the middle of my class (or get someone to cover) on Monday morning to make an AndyMark order? How do they choose these opening times? Mentors ARE AT WORK trying to earn a living in what little time we spend away from FRC.

It's like Black Friday at Best Buy. People are going to get virtually trampled on this one, again...

I know I don't have to make an order but when there's goods this good that are just being handed out, I have to make an order. You just can't pass on an opportunity like that. When it's free, who says "no thanks"? At least charge something for them maybe.

Also, so what happens when you try to press your luck, order gets sent to FIRST for review, and you end up with nothing? How much is too much? Can we pre-request quantities, or at least know the quantities?

Why don't they just eBay the darn stuff and roll it into their operating budget? Heck, I'd be content with them sweeping it into an office cake fund, just for us to not go through this again.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Or a scholarship, or a donation to charity.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I'm pretty sure that when items are donated for FIRST Choice, there are contractual and legal statutes that are expressed or implied. It would probably not be legal for FIRST to sell or raffle the items for any monetary gain, even if it was "for charity". Any income associated with this would then have to be accounted and it would just be a mess.

It's simple and straight cut. These are overstock items with a first come-first serve fulfillment. It is what it is. There undoubtedly will be more items available for FIRST Choice come competition season, so be vigilant and assign a team member or mentor to acquire the parts as soon as the flood gates open.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

AndyMark has decided to stress test their servers. This could amount to a self-inflicted DDoS attack.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

To be fair, their servers didn't go down this year due to traffic when FIRST Choice went live. It went down manually because of the coding issues.

As an aside, FIRST vastly improved their servers between 2012 registration and 2013 registration to mitigate the problems most people had in registering.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Yes, this system may not be the greatest. And yes, it will be a race of who has the fastest mouse. And maybe there will be that one guy who just sees free stuff and takes a lot to collect dust on a shelf (but not enough for FIRST to have to question his order). And it would have been really helpful if FIRST could have at least disclosed the quantities that they are starting out with (live updates on quantity would be even better). But FIRST isn't trying to make a big deal out of this. They have some stuff that they don't need anymore. Rather than throw it away, they decided to give it out to teams for free. Appreciate that! They didn't want to go through the huge effort to put some system in place to make sure that everything was fair. They just want to do something nice for the community. And they are even going to be watching to make sure there aren't any extreme abusers (I'm sure they aren't going to stop many orders, only the ones where people are purchasing IR Transmitters and lazy susans by the dozen). So just remember that FIRST didn't have to give out any free stuff at all.

P.S. Most teams drop off of the face of the earth until September, so there shouldn't be as much competition as we think there will be.

P.S.S. This is probably the kind of thing where the lead mentor doesn't have there to do it. A mentor, a student, or even someone that's not on the team could order stuff, have it shipped to the normal place, and if necessary get reimbursed for shipping.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Anyone have any luck?

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Every time I hit order, it gives me more notifications that stuff is no longer available or quantities had changed. Lost out on most everything of significant value...

Finally got the order to process 12 minutes after noon.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I lost the game.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Well that was a waste of 15 minutes of my life. By the time stuff finally got to my cart not much was left. After I updated my cart, even less left. I'm not spending money to ship a handful of stuff I could get locally for the equal price. I sure hope they get this FIRST Choice thing figured out before the time we really need it in January!

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Started with 8 different items and every time I waited for shipping calculation items dropped out...so a shipping recalculation was required and guess what?...more items dropped out. Eventually not ONE item was available:mad: Last time I ever go through this frustrating process (odds are better here in Vegas!)

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

None of the stuff was really worth the shipping cost IMO, except for maybe the photoswitches.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I was able to get most of the stuff in my cart. Had a hard time remembering my password, and by the time I did, the photo sensors were gone.

Other than that, have the form queued up and ready to go, starting at exactly 9am seemed to work.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I was hoping for a 550 or two, a laser range finder and a photo switch. All good values.

We got nothing, but I can't be too bummed; there wasn't an expectation or guarantee that we'd get anything.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I share everyone's experience with items in cart not in stock > adjust shipping > fail > page load error > repeat.

I'm still grateful that they offered us this opportunity. Some teams got a good deal and that will help them out in the future.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

from some reason andymark's website decided to give me random quantities of the items I added so I had to cancel and start over. The only thing I got and I wanted was the window motors.... I think there were about 10 or less per item...

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Got a 2 FP gearboxes and 2 lazy susans. We're a younger team so we don't have a ton of FP gearboxes and it's always nice to re-purpose those plastic gears if the application is right. Cost like 11 bucks to ship, pretty awesome. Thanks AndyMark!

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Let me know if you need more. I can check for what we haven't thrown out (we cleared about 10 years of excess inventory out).

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I knew this would be rough, but I'd hope that stuff that made it into the cart would either get all the way through checkout OR the errors wouldn't trip more lost items.

In addition to losing items, recalculating shipping, losing more items, (repeat), I had it tell me my customer ID was not valid once; by the next repeat, at which point I had lost most items, I was good to go again. I also had "randomly" assigned quantities, which appeared to be based somewhat on my original selection, but reshuffled with the lost items.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I share the same experience...infinite loop of recalc shipping and finally with two items in the card, submitted payment and bam! there it was recalculating qty and nothing was left!

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I feel like Charlie Brown on Halloween.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Did you get a special AM rock?

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Did the same thing here, except I logged into my account as well to make sure my billing information was correct.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Nope, not even a rock. :D

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Nope, I didn't want to pay shipping costs.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

You mean the 2014 FRC game piece? I got 3.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Is it wrong of me to say that I'm glad to hear even the most competitive of you had trouble getting the goods? I totally missed the opening time. Some of us have actual jobs during the day that we can't get away from...

Anyhow, I seem to have ordered 4 of the 3-outlet power cords. We'll see if it goes through.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

We managed to get quite a bit, they cut down on some of the quantities though. We also didnt manage to get any photoswitches.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I missed out.:(
Wrote it in my calendar.

Too bad I checked my calendar when I went into work, 2 hours after the start time.
For what was available, we might as well buy it ourselves since shipping came out to $200+ as our quote.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Whoops - I forgot to log in. The Gates belts kit was the thing that interested me the most. But it's cool. I'm glad that teams wanted all of this stuff. I hope everything goes so FIRST can tell all the donors that teams snapped up everything that was made available.

I'm guessing that FIRST Choice 2014 will feature some reasonably sensible point values and limits on the hot items.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I didn't personally do it, but we had good luck with this. Didn't get exactly what we planned but got a good number of items we'll certainly use.

Time to plan a new CAD PC build to put the graphics card to work. Did the same after the free GTX 480 handout from NVIDIA a couple years back.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I'd be curious on exactly how much stuff teams got, especially the ones who are posting saying they're happy with their haul. We logged in about 25 minutes late (I totally forgot that it opened today), but were still able to get 3 Fisher Price gearboxes. Not bad considering how hard those gearboxes can be to come by.

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

What we got, final order about 11:20am Central Time
Shipping was $8.77

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Hah, I figured you guys would try to get some of those. :rolleyes:

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

Order Placed: 08/19/2013 at 12:02PM EST

We only ordered one of each item. Shipping was $27.29

Re: FRC Blogged-FIRST Chocie-Liquidation
 

I also got caught in the dreaded loop of things disappearing from the cart. I did order a few regular items which may have slowed things down. Would've liked a matching set of concentric/eccentric rollers, but the concentrics sold out. Placed the following order at 12:07 EDT:

fc13-003 Targus USB Hub (fc13-003) 1
fc13-008 Direct mount terminal strip (fc13-008) 2
fc13-058 Adjustable Wrench Set (fc13-058) 1
fc13-064 lazy susan, 12" (fc13-064) 2
fc13-052 iglide Sliding Slewing Ring Bearing (fc13-052) 2
fc13-011 Integral Bushing Dualvee Eccentric Wheel (fc13-011) 2
fc13-115 Cable/Wire Stripper (fc13-115) 1
fc13-201 3-Port Extension Cables (fc13-201) 1
fc13-207 Pink 6ft. Crossover Cables (fc13-207) 1
fc13-208 Haydon Kirk Lead Screw (fc13-208) 2

Shipping was just under $18.