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Unread 09-07-2012, 18:05
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Jon Stratis Jon Stratis is offline
Mentor, LRI, MN RPC
FRC #2177 (The Robettes)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Rookie Year: 2006
Location: Minnesota
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Re: What do YOU want in the Kit of Parts?

I don't know how much of this the suppliers can influence... But I would love to see FIRST release some of the Robot Rules information early. Is there any harm in giving us a list of approved motors in November? Or in giving us the required minimum/maximum specs for pneumatics? Or letting us know what the approved electronics are? By releasing some of that information earlier, it would hopefully help relax the strain we see every year on our suppliers. Older, veteran teams with abundant resources can order a bunch of motors before the season starts, while newer teams and those with fewer resources can order during the season. That way, suppliers like Banebots aren't trying to fulfill 3000 orders for a half dozen 550's each all at once. Less stress means the suppliers can plan their inventory a little better and turn around orders quicker. Letting teams get their hands on new motors earlier means we'll have abundant information available from other teams right here on CD when the season starts, giving us a better idea of which motors we want to use (for example, it would be nice to know ahead of time if a motor is prone to overheating, or if teams are finding case shorts, etc).

As for other ideas...

- I'd love to see more items move over to FIRST Choice and vouchers, but that obviously comes with the caveat of schedule. If a team wants to put together the kitbot chassis on day 1, it can't be on FIRST Choice.

- I'd love to have the choice between the c-base chassis and the Nano Tube chassis from AndyMark

- Having purchasable field elements from the start would be great. For example, being able to buy a kit to build a bridge (with performance comparable to competition bridges) would have been ideal this year, since the team-version ended up not having identical performance very easily.
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2007 - Present: Mentor, 2177 The Robettes
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