Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Soukup
Really? When you're going to cause 2000 teams to want to buy 10-20 or more balls each, you'd better be sure that the only supplier of these balls is actually going to keep supplying them and will have a large enough quantity. As cabbagekid2 said, FIRST should have told the manufacturer and supplier what was going to happen. The small chance of potential damage caused by a leak is worth the huge pain that teams are facing now. How is a team supposed to design, build, and test a robot capable of holding 20 balls if they only have 4?
This is a pretty large 'oops' by FIRST.
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You are making a pretty big assumption that FIRST did not take reasonable steps to plan for team access to game pieces. Not to be an apologist for FIRST, but this one really was not their fault. The game piece was selected early last summer with the specific goal of making sure that they would be available through a ubiquitous outlet such as Wal-mart. Both the manufacturer and the outlet were consulted and informed of FIRST's intentions. Wal-mart indicated they could handle the expected distribution without disturbing their channels. All was considered well and good. But then one week before Christmas Wal-mart announced they were discontinuing sales of Orbit Balls, with no prior notice. That late in the process, two weeks before kick-off, there was no opportunity to negotiate an alternate distributor with the manufacturer or identify an alternate game piece. FIRST had planned to ensure that reasonable access to game pieces could be realized by those teams that wanted to obtain them. But they were caught at the last minute by forces beyond their control.
The current situation is one that, painful as it may be, we just have to deal with. In that regard, kudos go to Team 228 and their development of the GUS balls. They are an excellent solution to an unfortunate problem, and it is a wonderful move to share that solution with the entire FIRST community.
-dave
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