[Marina Dimitrov]

Hey everyone, sorry for the delayed reply, but the discussion about the FIRST blog regarding the KOP evolution reminded me to post this. Below is a summary of what we as Dean's List Winners did during the KOP supplier summit meeting, just so you have an idea of what happened and what impact it may have had:

The format of the meeting was a Q&A where the suppliers would ask us questions about the kit and the 10 Dean’s List Winners would provide answers. The main topic of this meeting was more the relationship between suppliers and FRC teams, with the KOP being a specific subcomponent. We discussed how suppliers can improve their interface with FRC teams in general, such as through their websites and documentation of parts. Several suppliers of some parts that were asked for were not present, so we focused mainly on giving the present suppliers input about how they could improve their companies’ input into the kit.

Items that were directly asked for:

Better pwm cables
Wago tools
More batteries
Wire in standard gauges
More victors/electronics in general
FIRST marketing material (we asked for this after the meeting somewhat informally since the suppliers are not really responsible for this)
More game pieces
Stuff for bumpers

Main topics of discussion:

Improve companies’ websites - A large portion of our conversation dealt with improving how sponsors educated us on their products. We said we would like to see more FIRST specific sections of companies websites where finding useful products and information about said products would be easier, there was talk of locating this in a central hub like a KOP website, and possibly a mobile app as well. We asked for easier access to engineering documentation about how parts should be used and the physics/math of using them. Including QR codes on each item also came up in the discussion.

Provide vouchers instead of parts in some cases, especially for veteran teams.

Bumpers and bumper rules - FIRST had also noticed that bumpers this past season posed a significant issue when teams were being inspected, and tells us they are reevaluating how bumper rules will work and looking at simplifying the process. We did suggest perhaps including bumper materials in the KOP.