Quote:
Originally posted by Joe Johnson
SPI has had almost EVERYTHING we ordered.
What do you actually need to buy from them? Most of the stuff on our robot this year will be from non-SPI source or from SPI but on the Additional Hardware List so we didn't HAVE to buy it from them.
Seriously, I think there are only a few specialty items (like Teflon sheets -- why do we need them? Mind your p's & q's ;-) that we HAD to get from SPI if we wanted to use them.
Anyway, I just thought I should come to the defend of SPI again, not by saying that they haven't screwed some teams up now and again because they obviously have, but by just saying that we have had a great year with ordering stuff from SPI -- actually, perhaps the best year in the 7 we have participated.
Just one man's point of view.
Joe J.
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What ended up happening is that since small parts is one of the three sources that people are allowed to use parts from, a lot of teams just go directly to small parts for gears and chains and sprockets... People did that because they see SPI as source of "small parts" ever since the beginning, and FIRST didn't make suggestions of online sources in the manual for places to buy them.
And a lot of teams doesn't understand how important the additional hardware list is, or even the importance of reading through the whole manual. That's why FIRST and this forum get a lot of questions, such as, "can we use belts on the robot?" or "can we use more than 3 drill motors?"
Maybe we got to come up with a letter that goes to ALL teams explaining how important this is. Knowing exactly what they can, and cannot use is important for designing the robot.
It doesn't have to be FIRST who do this... As long as we can get FIRST to forward it to all teams. Maybe, a letter titled: "the guide to FIRST robotics competition manual"
Just trying to make both our's and FIRST's life easier... Imagine how much less questions there will be if everyone read through the manual, which they are supposed to, but not everyone understand that.