Quote:
Originally Posted by wilsonmw04
Welcome to the real world where supply cannot be guaranteed. We are all under the same conditions when it comes to supply of certain items. Some teams just got luckier than others? is that fair. No, but who said the Real World is fair?
This is just another way that FIRST prepares the students in this awesome program for real world challenges. You must learn to adapt.
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While I agree with most of this statement, the part with which I disagree is of great interest to me. I agree that "real world unfairness" and the ability to adapt are great lessons, and I embrace them; however, I don't think luck has much to do with which teams end up with high demand parts. I think it has more to do with teams that have more money (can order parts that "might" be of use on day 1), experience (can get to finalized CAD models within the first couple weeks), and manpower (have people who can be focused on sourcing parts, or more prototyping teams to be able to "adapt").
So, my hypothesis* is high demand parts are disproportionately a problem for teams without the funds to "jump on" parts you might not use, and small teams without the manpower to adapt (since that means more time on re-engineering your design). This is not good for FIRST.
I am NOT advocating for any solutions which in any way hinder the elite teams. We love the elite teams. They inspire us. If they want to build 3 robots and need 40 hex hubs--that's really cool and I would not want to limit them.
I AM advocating the discussion of solutions to this problem, as opposed to chalking it up as "welcome to the real world". FIRST is about teaching hard lessons, but the mission is to inspire. Being able to reach a broader range of students and scaffolding their success on the way to being a sustainable team should therefore be a goal. This problem is in opposition to that goal.
I'm guessing there are many teams like us, that would benefit from a leveling of the playing field that brings us up. I wonder how many of the defunct teams would still be active if they had found a bit more success due to less work being required from access to FRC inspired products? I'm guessing having NO question that teams can access a KOP chassis is directly related to this.
IMO, I don't think the auction plan is trying to solve the problem (high demand parts), but instead shifting the "lesson" elsewhere.
I think having an "early release" of
some legal parts could help, and if vendors aren't selling until build season then maybe setting up a survey to try to judge demand better.
That said, anything that could give away the game would not only be bad because it would lose some of the fun, but it would also tilt the playing field towards the elite teams even more than high demand parts.
I actually found first choice and the PDV to make a BIG difference for us this year. We now have 2 gearboxes we need that in past years wouldn't have been available as KOP.
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*My personal experience that has led me to this hypothesis:
My FIRST experience has been 4.5 years as the only full-time adult mentor on a team in a very high poverty school district. Both myself and students have learned many lessons in that time, but the reality is knowing the lesson and growing from it are two different things. We KNOW we need to do better with fundraising, finding more sponsors/mentors, and recruiting more students, but we just struggle with it. We KNOW we need a CAD team, and to get our designs done earlier--but we still struggle. that said, we've only missed the elimination round once. If we had 4 years of missing the elimination round, I'm not sure if we would even HAVE a team. A few less kids any of those years and I don't know what would happen. EVERY YEAR there are parts that would have made things MUCH easier than "adapting", and I'm sure some teams had double digit quantities of them.
sometimes hearing things like "just adapt" can sound like "let them eat cake"
this year, if we had been able to save some of those first choice/pdv credits (afraid there would be nothing left!) until our design was better hashed out, and they were still in stock, we would have had 3 more gearboxes. That would have resulted in our 30pt climb design going forward; it was steady, safe, and left plenty of room for a shooter. From lessons learned before, we know we don't have time to adapt our design, so we adapt by focusing on the other things. Will the students be less inspired? Will it decrease our ability to recruit sponsors/mentors/students? Who knows?