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Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
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Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
I would love to know where you guys get your math! The real cost of the KOP? Probably around $10,000 by the estimates that I've heard. The software alone is more than $2,000. Perhaps we need to take one more look at what is in the kit and its market values before we give what we might value the kit at
[Edit]Fixing values, my thoughts were even low! |
Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
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I pulled the $17,000 from here: http://www.usfirst.org/about/2006/FR...nce_2006_3.pdf Kit Facts Retail value: $17,000 56 suppliers 350 parts per kit 70% of parts are donated It may or may not be accurate but it is apparently what FIRST believes so I will just have to go with what they tell us. I don't know for sure but I believe the number I have heard for the value of the software is closer to $10,000 alone. In any case, I figure we pay about $2,000 for the KoP and it just doesn't make sense to me to try to compete without it since at least $2,000 worth of stuff in the KoP is required to compete. Just my $.02 |
Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
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Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
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Consider this, even if you estimate the material kit at $10K, the autodesk software alone if more then $2000. Inventor 11 lists for $5295 on Autodesk's website (non-educational version). You can get the student versions for much less, (probably about $750 for Inventor and 3ds Max) but what we get are more then single license versions, and usually ship with more then the retail educational editions. Ayway you look at it, the KOP prices individually are much more then we pay. The question I would pose is this, just because you don't need it this year, how can you say it won't come in handy in the future? My team collected 6 years of pneumatics kits before using it heavily one year... All those fittings and such suddenly because very useful. |
Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
In my opinion, it is unlikely that FIRST will never offer two different versions of the KOP. Think about all the companies and manufacturers that donate to FIRST. Their way of sponsoring this program is by donating their products to a kit that reaches over 2000 teams internationally. Even though there are items in the kit that some teams may not want to use, FIRST still has to make those items availible. My feeling is that the sponsors would be dissapointed- and annoyed- if they knew that although they had donated millions of their products to FIRST, some teams had refused to accept their donation.
Our team saw this excact situation this year with a certain piece of the KOP (I'm not going to say what it was). It was clearly a low-quality, last-minute addition to the kit, and it was of absolutely no value to our team. But nothing is free- somebody, somewhere had to pay for that piece of equipment. It would be unfair to the sponsor- not to mention ungracious and unprofessional- if we had refused that donation. |
Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
Yeh, sure the excess parts are annoying but it can also be very valuable to you next season when heaven forbid you break another part and you still will have that leftover motor, servo, sensor, or pump.
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Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
I think the real answer is: we can not know for sure based on anyone's math because the true financial information is not released publicly.
You can't assume that the KOP is $2k because even though it's $2k less for your second regional the regional shouldn't receive money. The way it works is the regional committee has to raise their own money. If they fall short of the $120k or so it takes than FIRST will chip in. If a regional relies on FIRST for too many years it may be canceled. I also think the software quote is very misleading. The software is meant for academic use which always comes with huge discounts. I doubt FIRST ever pays a dime for the software we receive. To sum things up, we can only guess at costs because we don't really know FIRST's financials down to the nuts and bolts. |
Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
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The question is how you value the kit... There are few options...
My claim is that all of these are valid. But they give you very different values. I tend to agree with those who talk about the sponsors. I think a few would be annoyed if they provided parts as sponsorship and then found out on a certain set of teams received them. |
Re: Do we have to buy a kit?
there is no such thing as too many parts or useless parts, only parts you dont need yet. If there were ever an option to take a smaller scaled down KOP i would push my team not to take it. if a sponsor to my team or first was giving me free or highly discounted parts i would willingly take it. if i didnt have a use for it i would keep it packed away somewhere untill i needed it. and like people said if i wanted to go buy a copy of 3ds and Inventor alone it would cost way more than what i am paying for the entire kit and so it seems well worth it to me.
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