[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Nice work with that product line. Very nice work.

IFI's experience with engineering for mass production appears to have resulted in a great feature set at an excellent price point. They've definitely shaken up the economics of FRC in a good way! (I'm very curious about the business model and the profit margin, though....)

Can someone from IFI please verify where the components of the major new products were produced - especially the mechanical hardware?

I believe AndyMark uses quite a few U.S. suppliers for the components of their flagship mechanical hardware. Whether borne out of necessity or an intentional desire to promote American-made content, it is a partnership I can appreciate.

I am also not opposed at all to purchasing products with a higher percentage of foreign-sourced content if the quality is there (and it seems like it should be there with the new VEXpro stuff - looking forward to trying out the VersaPlanetaries). I'm sure many teams will find the low costs very attractive.

Before I would personally consider any of the new VEXpro drivetrain products for competition bot usage, I would like to see the new gearboxes and VersaWheel/Hub system used and abused under extended competition conditions (i.e. let other teams be the guinea pigs for one season and report their experiences with the products ).

It's going to be interesting to see AndyMark adapt to this: they've released some nice new components as well, but I can't help but conclude they've been grossly upstaged. AndyMark has the FIRSTChoice contract, but they're going to have to work on optimizing the details to catch up to IFI's latest offerings. And since it's too late for major part changes for 2013, will this force AndyMark to cut prices and reduce their 2013 earnings targets?

I look forward to seeing how Andy and Co. positively respond to this new competitive challenge. Given how hard they've worked in fairly short order to build their company up from two guys with an idea to the outstanding FRC supplier they are today, I have every confidence they will do so, to their customers' benefit.

I hadn't recently thought to count the number of staff working for IFI with top-quality FRC experience—but they've got a dream team going there, for sure. AndyMark has expertise, but (I presume) doesn't have the financial flexibility to pay a horde of FRC experts to work on things they're passionate about for a year, and doesn't have the supply chain and in-house manufacturing capability to turn out a completely new product line in that time.

The team assembled at IFI is impressive, and it knows how to leverage IFI's ample resources in an efficient manner. However, I also appreciate the "grassroots" efforts of the folks at AndyMark who started out small (and still are? I wonder how many employees they staff even today) and who assumed great risk in pioneering the introduction of affordable off the shelf mechanical components, opening up a new world to teams who previously had no way to fabricate such things themselves. AndyMark achieving what they do with the resources they have at their disposal is a testament to their work ethic and their dedication to the FRC community. These are qualities that will serve them well in responding to this new marketplace challenge.

On a wholly speculative note, I wonder what kind of market pressure it would take for AndyMark (a smallish business) to conclude that if you can't beat them, join them?

That sounds somewhat dubious, like a small business dealing with the new Walmart in town. Can you elaborate further on what you mean by "join them"?

As for BaneBots, given IFI's new planetaries, they're done for. There is a 0% chance that I'd waste my time dealing with BaneBots' frequently unreliable gearheads, or their hit-and-miss service, when IFI—full of people I know and trust—is offering a substitute at a comparable price, with the promise ("coming soon") of better documentation and reasonable prospects for on-time delivery. BaneBots can't be making much profit on their low-end can motors, and unless they have a huge surprise for us, that's essentially all they'll be selling to FRC teams this year—I doubt they'll be back in 2014.

Some have had more success with their products than others. I am thankful for what they've done with their P60 and P80 products over the years, but it is great to see a functional equivalent enter the marketplace to drive improvements in designs and customer service. I hope Banebots uses the challenge to improve on the weaknesses many have lamented in the past. However, if they ultimately are "done", I thank them for providing a low-cost product no one else did at the time - one that has been very kind to my team over the years.

It seems strange to think of FRC as a real, functioning market, but IFI's newfound strength is certainly going to make 2013 an interesting year from an economic point of view.

One more thing to consider: there's the prospect of a new control system platform in the future, and I don't doubt that IFI wants to supply it. Will they be in a position of such strength in a year's time that they'll have cornered the market on both controls and mechanical hardware in FRC? Wouldn't that be a satisfying resolution to their ouster from FVC and the loss of the FRC control system contract a few years ago?

Is "cornering the market" and becoming an FRC "mega-supplier" IFI's goal? If that is "satisfying" to the IFI folks, that's one thing, but I don't work for them. My question is, would such a scenario be the one most beneficial for FRC teams if that were ever to happen?