Re: 2007 Kit
 

This whole battery thing has always been to create business for FIRST battery suppliers. These batteries are interchangable when used to start the engines in motorcycles, or whatever their normal use is, and would also be essentially interchangable for our use. Exide got a few years of "guaranteed" business, and now someone else will get at least one year of guaranteed business.

Re: 2007 Kit
 

I can't comment about every year, but at least once I know that FIRST kit-of-parts batteries were definitely not selected to create business for the battery supplier.

In 1997 (for Toroid Terror) I was the battery "supplier". The batteries that year were used in a 12V cordless Skil-Bosch drill made by another division of the company I work for. My management OK'd buying a few hundred extra units to donate to FIRST. Things were simpler then -- only about 150 kits, if I recall correctly, with two batteries per kit and about 200 spares. We also supplied a similar quantity of the battery chargers, drill motors, gearboxes, and drill housings from the same product.

Just look at this awesome 2007 kit of parts! FIRST has come a long way!

Re: 2007 Kit
 

I remember the cordless drill batteries, and yes, what we know have to work with is much better. The drill batteries, as I remember, had 10 sub-C nicad cells each and probably had a capacity of not much more than one amp-hour. Using two of these batteries, we still had, at best, maybe 20% of the battery capacitiy we have with the current gel batteries. Another area where we are much better off is the speed controls. The Tekin R/C car contollers that we used through 1998, while very good for their intended application, were seriously overstressed when used for drill motors at 12 volts.

Re: 2007 Kit
 

Sorry Kit, but you are flat out wrong. The requirement to use the new battery supplied in the Kit Of Parts (and for that matter, any other component from the KOP) has absolutely NOTHING to do with an effort to create business for a specific supplier. It has everything to do with guaranteeing that the field is as fair as possible to all teams.

The fact that the MK-12 batteries and the previously available Exide batteries can both turn over a motorcycle engine is interesting, but totally irrelevant. It takes about 90 seconds of research to determine that the batteries are NOT the same. Their characteristics, charge rates, and - most importantly - discharge rates are different. And those differences have significant implications for robot performance in a competition application such as FIRST. To ensure that the performance of the power system used in the competition is predictable and consistent for all teams, FIRST has to require that every team use the same make and model of battery.

So next time, before anyone accuses FIRST of being in the pocket of the sponsoring corporations, they might spend a minute and a half to actually apply some of that critical analytical ability that we are supposed to be demonstrating as educated engineers, and think objectively about the rationale that might be used for the various decisions that are made regarding the competition, Kit Of Parts, and robot requirements. You might find that it is not really due to some nefarious financial plot on the part of the people that are supporting this program, but that there is actually an understandable, logical reason that is obvious once you think about it.

-dave

Re: 2007 Kit
 

Sorry about my accusations, Dave. I agree that FIRST is very conscientious in its decisions about robot specs and all other aspects of the competition design. I still feel that Exide, MK-12, Yuasa, or any other "name brand" battery of the type we use would perform comparably for our purposes. The most likely exception would be weight. There might be slight variations of internal resistance in the batteries, but that would be the case between different samples of the same brand. Given that we could get two or three "good" matches from a fully charged battery if we wanted to chance it, I think it's safe to assume that any brand of non-defective battery of the style we use would perform well for one match.

Again, I apologize to anyone I may have offended and promise not to do it again.

Re: 2007 Kit
 

I don't think the question is being allowed to use other brand batteries, but more of 'why did FIRST change it?' People feel the change was done to drive business to a sponsor. Regardless of that or whatever happened, is there really a big enough performance increase in the new batteries to warrant the switch? Well, FIRST certainly thinks so.

Re: 2007 Kit
 

Or, just maybe, it was not FIRST's decision. Remember, there are at least two parties involved in the supplier-consumer relationship. Everyone seems to be making assumptions attributing questionable motives to FIRST for the causes behind this change. Have you considered the possibility that the supplier may have chosen to change the terms of their deal with FIRST? Perhaps FIRST, faced with the choice of continuing with an existing supplier that was going to charge significantly more money for the batteries which would have to be passed on to the teams, or going with a new supplier that provided batteries with different characteristics but similar or lower pricing, chose to look for the deal with the best financial benefit to the teams?

If there are people that feel the change was done to drive business to a sponsor, they need to think things through again. For almost all of these questions there are multiple possible answers and reasons that a supplier decision might be made. And most of those answers do not require that FIRST be populated with self-interested financial vultures eager to screw us, as some are apparently assuming.

-dave

Re: 2007 Kit
 

Exide stopped donating batteries.

Re: 2007 Kit
 

Dave and GNH200 (whoever that is),

But why the rule exluding the purchase of the Exide (or Yuasa battery)? You can say fairness, but that is a pretty weak argument since everyone can purchase those batteries.

Please do not even touch the "small teams can't afford it". They can afford to travel to a regional, they can afford the $7,000 entry fee. The extra $50 to buy two batteries is noise.

-PAul

Re: 2007 Kit
 

I found that suction cup pretty powerful, but it requires just a little pressure to get its seal started, and you have to get it on a smooth surface (not the edge of the tube). It will certainly lift the tube well and even survive some quick jolts, but notice you can't use it to rotate the tube vertically. So unless I'm missing something you can't tip a tube up from the ground using the suction cup :(

If only someone could make a mechanism that mimics that motion people make with their foot to tip the ringers vertically... :cool:

Re: 2007 Kit
 

Imagine that we were allowed to use any lead-acid battery of the "size group" that we are now using and FIRST would simply find the cheapest place to buy two per kit, and include them in the kit. IMHO, this is what would probably happen.

A few teams would buy some batteries from various manufacturers including Exide, Yuasa, Varta, MK-12, or whoever else they could find, and do performance tests on them. They might, for example, measure voltage after 5 seconds into a 0.1 ohm load, voltage after 2 minutes into a 0.5 ohm load, or other electrical tests. They would probably find that they'd need several samples of each battery to come up with statistically significant results, and even then, results might be inconclusive. Still, a few teams with the resources might do it. Then, being gracious professionals that FIRSTers are, they would publish the results of their tests in the Chief Delphi White Pages. They would also list the weights of the batteries, for those who care.

Then armed with these test results provided by gracious professionals from other teams, most teams would still buy their extra batteries for practice and competition from whatever source they could find that was cheapest and/or most convenient. If, and it's a big "if" it turned out that one brand of battery was significantly better for "keeping the voltage up" when you have four stalled CIM motors, the more serious teams would go for the better batteries.

Re: 2007 Kit
 

So does it state some where that if we buy the breaker panel that we can't use it?

I found rules in which would support using it, but also found rules that would make it not usable, and by the flowchaert it could be used.

Of course going by the rule that you have to "follow the wiring diagram" then we couldn't use it. However last year it was like this also and they changed and said we could which was nice.

It provides for a lot more clean wiring and does not have as much weight.

Re: 2007 Kit
 

[quote=Paul Copioli;

Please do not even touch the "small teams can't afford it". They can afford to travel to a regional, they can afford the $7,000 entry fee. The extra $50 to buy two batteries is noise.

-PAul[/QUOTE]

>>off topic<<<Maybe. Maybe not. Registration remained at $6,000 this year for the first regional. Just a gentle reminder that there are many teams with a budget in the $8,000-9,000 range. They are dealing with the cards they were dealt. "Travel to the regional" involves being driven in private car/or a long public bus ride. No hotels. Bring your own bag lunch.

I'll be interested to see the creative recycling and reuse options developed by the teams that have the potential to turn into much bigger community service projects.

Re: 2007 Kit - Camera
 

Since the camera has changed for this year, does that imply we cannot use last year's camera as a back up??

BC

Re: 2007 Kit - Camera
 

The camera model has not changed, and if I'm wrong and it has, it's still something you can buy. Wouldn't that qualify as a COTs part?

The whole dual-tracking or more thing is software on the RC, as the Cam's firmware hasn't been updated as far as I know.