Quote:
Originally Posted by Ari423
I think pretty much everyone in this thread agrees that non-US teams have many huge disadvantages, in ways US teams can't even understand. But no good comes from lowering the ceiling, we need to raise the floor. Instead of limiting pre-orders to only international teams to balance the disadvantages, we (and FIRST) should work to make it easier for international teams. Perhaps that means shipping you the kit of parts early and trusting you not to open it like they trust you to bag the robot on bag day. Perhaps it means providing dimensions for parts in metric so it's easier to find locally sourced parts. It is impossible to make it completely even for non-US teams, but that doesn't mean we have to make it harder for everybody when we can make it easier for everybody too.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GeeTwo
If the extra game piece(s) option were available to US teams, we would almost certainly take advantage of the opportunity; I wouldn't be a bit surprised if half of the US teams took advantage of it. The reason I believe it should be extended to US teams is this: If AM (or another supplier) could reliably expect 2000-3000 orders of the game piece sight unseen (perhaps back in October), this would significantly ease the regular chicken-and-egg problem of FRC game pieces -- the global demand is usually 1500 units per year, then suddenly, in one month, there's a demand for 10,000 of them. The global stocks disappear in a day, and it takes a week or more to spin up the factory on the item. US teams get it in two weeks, and other teams in four (or more). Front-loading the demand would reduce the problem for EVERYBODY.
(And OBTW, I expect that the same would hold true for FTC.)
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The problem in applying this option to all teams in my point of view:
1-First choice credits are not money
as I understand the items on first choice came from donations, and the risk involving the game pieces market is 100% on Andy Mark (they need to supply the market but they hold the risk of not selling part of it) so FIRST dont need to deal with it.with save costs and time
2- shipping costs
how can FIRST deal with shipping? since this will not fit into the box (depending of the game) and will be so much work if they need to charge differently for each team or kick off (it looks simple but if i know that all the boxes will have the same weigth probably is easier since we are talking about +2000 teams)
3- sorting
sorting orders is not included in what FIRST does as an organization. and Andy Mark for example cannot sell game pieces before kick off
4-time is money
anything that increase the amount of time or work in a operation will cost money, in my point of view First is trying to keep it working without increase the registration fee, it didint increased since i started in 2006
So, in my point of view what they are doing is working a solution that help the teams that have huge problems with "working case by case" (since is a qty of teams that dont demand a huge change in the way they work)
But yes is possible to give access to all teams, but it will cost money, and the only way i see it now is incresing the registration fee, and who wants it?