Being the taciturn engineer that I am, I posited a position in four sentences instead of four paragraphs.
The point I was getting at was that the "prices" on FIRST Choice were not market prices. They were predicted values by some who were knowing, but not fully informed about the demand for the product in the marketplace. Combined this with a first to the post purchasing arrangement (compounded by electronic topological locality advantages), and you have a warped market that generally occurs only when governments try to interfere with free markets. If things were right, the prices of the current leftovers on FIRST Choice would be much lower. Instead, there is remaining inventory at fixed prices. Some items disappeared faster than the sales system could be corrected .Why anyone would want a flawed cable (from last year) priced for more than the shipping price escapes me, but maybe someone will take it (bigger fool theory).
By the time that kickoff occurs, the number of teams are known, and the amount of donated support is known. Let's have a free market lesson. Every team bought in to the pot with the same amount. They each get the same amount to spend on the donated hardware and services. Open a true auction for the available goods & services, and let it run for a week. No dependencies on the quality or location of Internet services, or on the real time abilities of the order entry system. And this washes out this year;s problems with the ordering system. Here's a hook to get eBay involved with FIRST.
This comes closer to the real world than the current setup. The customer offers the most for what they think is most valuable. The supplier sorts through the demand for their product, and either declines or accepts some business, by their standards of profitability. The demand side assesses the relative merits of what is available to and bids accordingly. Oh, look, there's an auction.
Just an Old Fart's Observation
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