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Re: New CRIO in the KOP next year?
I will echo what Dave said earlier. Everyone needs to weigh the costs of all decisions. One good example is this year's playing surface.
Assuming we don't use it again... we can look at the money spent like this:
Cost of a whole field of FRP was something approaching $1500 at undiscounted prices.
If we assume that every regional area probably had at least two or more practice fields.... This is a cost of 40 X 2 X 1500 = $120,000
If 1000 teams each bought 2 sheets at $30 a sheet that would be an additional $60,000.
So in a very conservative estimate... FIRST teams spent $180,000 on FRP this year.
Now the real cost is probably closer to $250,000 just for this material.
And yes... the cost of carpet would have been comparable... but carpet was used many times...in fact the carpet we used under our practice field was from 2 years ago...and you did need carpet under the FRP to match field conditions...
It was an interesting game... but in terms of how costly... the field was high cost.... and not reusable...
so the green cost was also high... FRP is probably partially made from petrochemicals...and what do we do with it now?
These kinds of issues... need to be considered...
Cost is magnified as we get bigger...
If everyone needed an extra Driver's Station this year because they needed a spare... that would be a cost of approximately 1500 X the $162 cost
or $243,000 Even if only 500 teams needed extra driver's stations the cost is $81,000 to teams...
If 1500 FIRST teams could each save even $250 from their cost of entering the competition that would be $375,000
This perhaps is the most telling statement.... FIRST would not get that money...
There is no good answer,
Next year's game should have someone on the GDC that oversees exactly this kind of thing...
both the $$$ hidden costs....
AND the Green costs of the game.
We need to start reusing things....
And we certainly should not be wasting anything...
Perhaps at the end of the season teams could get a rebate on the next year by sending BACK certain unused materials...
This might make more sense than a shopping cart approach to the kit.
just an idea
Anyone want to purchase some used FRP?
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