[dsirovica]

Back to the next MC topic.

I think the only realistic way to make this work is if some "large" vendor steps in and manufactures this product as a charitable donation to FIRST.

Realistically there is no way a community effort can support KOP/FIRST needs. Remember kids need to use these products, we cannot have a gazillion of modules/combinations. Today we have two: a Vic or a Jag and just these two is confusing everybody and creating a huge debate :-)

Vics and Jags are sub $100. There is no way one can build this for less unless you are a large volume manufacturer - way larger than the FIRST market.

Vics and (to a much lesser extent) Jags have had multiple generations of fine tuning. If we design our onw in the next few months - will it work just fine ???

I think some vendor needs their arm twisted to take the donated IP of the Jag and improve on it in an incremental fashion. We've all witnessed some really good suggestins on how improve a Jag. With some of these implemented I think the new Jag will be a fine product for FIRST.

This is not rocket science and it doesn't evolve much anymore, so we just need a stable product and ride down the cost curve asap. I can imagine the New-Jag in a Vic format for < $50.

What our community effort can do is to act as an advisor to the benevolent manufacturer. Maybe FIRST can orchestrate this and there ought to be prizes and recognition for those that contribute a lot.

Dean