AndyMark FIRST Choice Tease

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by ttldomination

Any word on this "window"? A link or something? I can't seem to find anything.

- Sunny G.

Here's the FIRST webpage for FIRST Choice.

The Andy Mark site should be opening today to view some of the FIRST Choice items.

Teams can select items starting Dec. 10 using credits obtained through TIMS.

[Mark McLeod]

It's open now: http://www.andymark.com/FIRST-Choice-Public-s/411.htm

IR Transmitter (fc13-004) is interesting.

Anubis 3D Print Job (fc13-092) , too.


Talons are on there.

Ooo, circular saws, Battlebots IQ?

Lots of video card choices for the robot this year

8-slot cRIO for some odd reason. Must be left overs.

[maddoctor90]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

IR Transmitter (fc13-004) is interesting.

2008 Overdrive hybrid period coming back?

[Gary Dillard]

Snow Blower Motor? Forget the water game, how about a snow game?

[SarahBeth]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

Snow Blower Motor? Forget the water game, how about a snow game?

That was my first thought too. That'd be quite the field reset.

Or how about the laser distance meter and sonar senser.....Battleship anyone?

[Littleboy]

There is a metric crescent wrench.

The remote has no purpose other than to hint that the game will be a water game.
Remote
adjective
2.
out-of-the-way; secluded: a remote village; a remote mountaintop.

This must mean that whatever surface the game is on is secluded from FIRST choice.
What is secluded from FIRST choice? Yep, thats right. WATER. Water Game 2013! Thank you AndyMark for this wonderful hint.

[joelg236]

I don't quite understand the purpose of this. Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

[MagiChau]

Originally Posted by joelg236

I don't quite understand the purpose of this. Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

Its to protect the port on a electronic device from becoming damaged that may be somewhat costly to repair or replace. If the ethernet port on the classmate is destroyed you cannot connect an ethernet cable to it anymore. If this breaks the classmate one would be undamaged since presumably you would never disconnect this from the classmate so it never would experience wear and tear.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by joelg236

I don't quite understand the purpose of this. Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

It's to protect the port in the hardware mechanically. Putting the cable in and out of the cRIO (or whatever expensive piece of hardware) a bunch of times, if you fail the port you have to repair or replace the component. With the jumper, if you fail the port you just replace the jumper.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by joelg236

I don't quite understand the purpose of this. Is it to protect the signal in the cord or something?

Teams continuously unplug and replug the ethernet port on their driver station laptops at competitions. This makes them susceptible to damage. Should the port on the cable you linked break, only that has to be replaced, instead of the entire DS laptop. We had an issue with a loose ethernet port on our laptop this year, so I'm ranking this high on my FIRST Choice/purchase wish list.

[joelg236]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Teams continuously unplug and replug the ethernet port on their driver station laptops at competitions. This makes them susceptible to damage. Should the port on the cable you linked break, only that has to be replaced, instead of the entire DS laptop. We had an issue with a loose ethernet port on our laptop this year, so I'm ranking this high on my FIRST Choice/purchase wish list.

Makes sense actually. Although throwing our DS around probably lends itself to more potential damage than plugging in the cord.

[Mark McLeod]

We also use this port saver on the robot bridge as a pit tether port.
Tied down to the frame this protects against damage and wear to the ports on the bridge, especially when we drive away and the cord doesn't follow.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

We also use this port saver on the robot bridge as a pit tether port.
Tied down to the frame this protects against damage and wear to the ports on the bridge, especially when we drive away and the cord doesn't follow.

{sarcasm}Oh, c'mon. This never happens {/sarcasm}

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

{sarcasm}Oh, c'mon. This never happens {/sarcasm}

To this day I get aggravated whenever I see serial cables that are screwed in / together.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by BigJ

To this day I get aggravated whenever I see serial cables that are screwed in / together.

True story:
During Stack attack an arm from an opposing robot found the only hole in our armor and started thrashing around inside our robot. After about 10 seconds of this our robot died on the field. At first we believed that they had damaged the IFI controller but once the match was over we discovered the real reason we stopped.

Apparently their robot had grabbed on to the serial cable between the IFI controller and the radio and pulled. Fortunately one of our students had forgotten to screw in the cable, and as such it just pulled out rather than damage the controller.

... sometimes you just get lucky.