Vetting and Idea: Modular Field Design...

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by MattK

Justin I was there when you were talking about it and I agree, I think re-using parts of the game good. Lets say in 2 years we see a game that involved Bins and balls (think putting balls in bins) with a ramp and maybe a hanging bar.

This game would be completely different... you would most likely never be able to use just the robot for 03 or 04 for it. (How would your 2003 robot place BALLS in BINS or how would your 2004 robot climb a steep slope).

You're already seeing FIRST re-use ideas. This year's game "Raising The Bar" is a reference to 2000's Co-Opertition where the height of the chinup bar was 6ft. Both games involved handling balls of approximately the same size and included hanging. In fact, if you were to look at my old team 175's robot from 2000 and look at the new 2004 Buzz they are almost identical.

[Greg Needel]

Ok so I think I will add some stuff to this discussion.....


First off like people have said before they do reuse the field exterior every year but they do replace the player stations because of changes in the game and damage to the lexan.

Second I would be cool if they could come up with elements that could be reused. I personally think that the mobile goals from this year could have been the ones from 2002.

Third. I think that a better solution to the cost of the field is keeping it simpler. for example the center of this years field with the bar cost $30,000 to make each one, because of the bar lowering and the custom size etc. if FIRST could figure out a cheaper way to make the field then it would cut costs overall..

There were 7 fields this year meaning that all the centers is $210,000 if you could just cut the cost for the center of the field in half you would still have $105,000 which can go a long way as far as funding goes. And that just deals with the one aspect of the field. There are many other ways to cut costs all could deal with the offset of the increased cost of putting on the competiton


*note the $30,000 figure is something that I heard at nationals in the volunteer lunch and I am not sure about it's accuracy but I believe it to be correct.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

*note the $30,000 figure is something that I heard at nationals in the volunteer lunch and I am not sure about it's accuracy but I believe it to be correct.

That number is not correct. It is off by almost an order of magnitude (too high).

-dave

[JVN]

Originally Posted by dlavery

That number is not correct. It is off by almost an order of magnitude (too high).

-dave

It's just amazing the kind of information some people on there forums "know" to be "fact".

The newest trend. Just incredible.

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by JVN

It's just amazing the kind of information some people on there forums "know" to be "fact".

The newest trend. Just incredible.

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

As far as the financials go:
FIRST's 2003 revenue is about $15 million. Each field costs about $50,000. Assuming there's 6 fields that's $300k in fields. That's 2% of revenue. I don't think 2% is too much to spend for what is essentially the most important and exciting part of FIRST each year. Sure, we don't count Dean, Dave's or anyone elses labor from the game design comittee, but if we started billing out labor on this volunteer project we'd be in the hundreds-of-millions of dollars.

Let me cite my numbers.

1.) $15 million revenue-
Taken from the 2003 Financial Statement. The exact revenue for U.S. FIRST for 2002-2003 is $15,290,977.

2.) $50,000 per field-
This is how much it costs to insure the field if you are hosting a competition. If anyone has a different value for the field and has a good reason I would be welcome to hear it.

3.) 6 fields-
Einstein, Archimedes, Curie, Newton, and Galileo. That's 5 fields, I presume there is a backup for every component so that makes 6 fields.