Email from Jon Dudas

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

(@bilbo911: Our season (minus CMP) cost us only $177 per match, or about $1.31 per second. You guys need to move to the district system...)

Cal. will be moving to a District model soon. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Our cost this year, $9K for 2 Regional's, $2.5K for build, plus additional travel etc.
~$12K for 20 qual. matches + 6 elims. $461.51 per match not including travel and lodging. We would LOVE to be under $200/match!

By the way, Techhelpbb, we never once had a comm. issue this year, so you are right, I do see things from a different, un-jaded angle.
I've been following your posts as well as others on the subject. I have a pretty good feel for what where you are coming from and understand your point. That said, there just isn't enough hard evidence to come to any conclusion, yet.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

I went to the FRC Live the day before and someone (I think Don from 1676) asked about the communications issues. The Control Systems engineer in the panel said that the system was guaranteed until 2014, but they were taking suggestions for 2015 and beyond.

I have an idea!

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I have an idea!

Saddens me, seeing "discontinued" in the far right column for most of those old familiars.

Back to the OP: FIRST will fix this. JVN is right, we need to move forward in a constructive manner. A better solution will come from this.

Design is an iterative process ...

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I have an idea!

It is pointless for IFI to even consider investing so much money in restarting the production lines on such an outdated system. However, with FIRST's contract for use of the NI control system ending in 2014, I would not be surprised if IFI submitted a proposal of some kind to FIRST.

While the full-sized IFI controller is not produced today in any form, Vex controllers are the direct descendants of IFI's ISSAC and EDU controllers. These controllers were simply smaller versions of the PBASIC RC and the PIC RC respectively. The lineage is more evident when one considers the original, PIC based VEX controller, which was a variation of the EDU controller sold with the rest of the completely re-branded EDU line under the new VEX name. The move to ARM processors replaced this with the familiar Cortex controller and added a new branch to the tree, the ARM9 advanced robot controller.

The ARM9 might actually be evidence of IFI's push to develop a controller that is even remotely comparable to the cRIO for potential future use by FIRST. It might also be a sign that VRC will soon be expanding to an FRC scale competition. This is all just speculation, don't make any huge investments based solely on my observations. However, signs point to something going on inside IFI that is leading them toward development of products in the formerly static VEXpro line. It just seems a bit out of place.

Originally Posted by Richard

Saddens me, seeing "discontinued" in the far right column for most of those old familiars.

Back to the OP: FIRST will fix this. JVN is right, we need to move forward in a constructive manner. A better solution will come from this.

Design is an iterative process ...

Hey, when did he get back, I missed his presence over the build season. I'm glad to see that his blog is back up. Seems like product development over at VEX has been keeping him busy, that, or VRC