First Choice 2013

[David Brinza]

It's a little more complicated than just telling the more senior teams who were locked-out for the first 20 minutes "too bad."

The items that went out-of-stock quickly (but magically appeared to be restocked), were high-value items targeted by teams who planned for what they would need. The log-in issue was not the fault of those with team number <1000.

Wiping the slate clean and starting over is probably not practical. But how else will all of the teams get equal opportunity to these items?

[WarehouseCrew]

Thanks.

When I sort FIRST Choice "Price: High to Low" is shows big ticket items like "assorted terminal bag" (FC13-139) and "ethernet cross over cable" (FC13-126) in the top 10 items displayed!

Still no points displayed. Can anyone see FIRST Choice points now (6 pm CST)? I will download Firefox if that is the solution.

I hope they have it fixed (and some remaining stock) tomorrow.

Thanks.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by WarehouseCrew

Thanks.

When I sort FIRST Choice "Price: High to Low" is shows big ticket items like "assorted terminal bag" (FC13-139) and "ethernet cross over cable" (FC13-126) in the top 10 items displayed!

I don't think it sorts very well because the items don't technically have a numerical value. They, for purposes of FIRST Choice, have their prices set to $0.00.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by WarehouseCrew

Thanks.

When I sort FIRST Choice "Price: High to Low" is shows big ticket items like "assorted terminal bag" (FC13-139) and "ethernet cross over cable" (FC13-126) in the top 10 items displayed!

Still no points displayed. Can anyone see FIRST Choice points now (6 pm CST)? I will download Firefox if that is the solution.

I hope they have it fixed (and some remaining stock) tomorrow.

Thanks.

I don't believe points will be visible until the login system is re-enabled tomorrow.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by WarehouseCrew

Can anyone give me an idea of how many points items cost (eg. cRIO, Classmate, Talon, other "good" stuff) on the FIRST Choice?

Here's a captured list from before FIRST Choice opened and another list from Tuesday afternoon, after 2nd opening day.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Here's a captured list.

Mark, I have no idea how you manage to have all the information all the time. Sometimes I think it's magic, Thank You.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Mark, I have no idea how you manage to have all the information all the time. Sometimes I think it's magic, Thank You.

My wife simply claims I spend too much time on the computer.

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Mark, I have no idea how you manage to have all the information all the time. Sometimes I think it's magic, Thank You.

This is beyond magic. I don't even know how to describe everything that he seems to know or find out about. I don't think we thank him enough for his vast encyclopedia of knowledge.

[WarehouseCrew]

What strategy would work best assuming some items are out of stock and others may run out of stock shortly after AndyMark comes back on line?

For example, it you want a high demand item (eg. cRio, Talon, etc.) would it make sense to pick a few items and check out (eg. before using all your credits) to insure that you get the items before they are out of stock?

It doesn't sound like gracious professionalism, but we came late to the party last year and didn't get any of the items we had wanted (eg. used up credits on items left over from initial rush). Tried to avoid that this year, but couldn't get logged in.

[maddoctor90]

I personally think that the whole FIRST Choice thing should be done differently. It does not seem very gracious and professional like to have all the teams fighting against each other to grab the best deal and leave the others teams who were to slow with nothing. There are many teams this year struggling to find the funds for their team that really could use these items more than the more veteran and well off teams. I feel like somehow FIRST should have requested that teams who feel like they are better off to wait a day before ordering to allow for teams that really need the items have the first go. The proposed idea may not work as well as I would like to think, but I feel like the FIRST community is better than this. At minimum, there should have been more quantity limits on items so the "better items" would have been spread out among the teams better.

[Patrick Flynn]

I think that a possible way to improve this process would be to split the stock of FIRST choice products into thirds or even more. Have the first third of teams be allowed into first choice at 10-am and then close at 11:50-am, the second set of items for the second third of teams would be open 12-1:50 and so on. After all the divisions of teams had received their allowed time, the store could open back up and everyone could pick over the left over items.
All the teams would initially have access to the same number of parts, and after the whole process you would still be allowed to chose an item that all of the teams from a different ordering block didn't want.

[CoachSally]

100 points are supposed to be awarded Dec. 10 with another 100 after Kick Off.

[Nemo]

Originally Posted by maddoctor90

I personally think that the whole FIRST Choice thing should be done differently. It does not seem very gracious and professional like to have all the teams fighting against each other to grab the best deal and leave the others teams who were to slow with nothing. There are many teams this year struggling to find the funds for their team that really could use these items more than the more veteran and well off teams. I feel like somehow FIRST should have requested that teams who feel like they are better off to wait a day before ordering to allow for teams that really need the items have the first go. The proposed idea may not work as well as I would like to think, but I feel like the FIRST community is better than this. At minimum, there should have been more quantity limits on items so the "better items" would have been spread out among the teams better.

A better solution would be to adjust all of the point values to more accurately reflect the relative value of each item. A lot of the more prosaic items would become attractive at 1-3 points. Make Talons (a $60 item that is guaranteed to be useful for absolutely any robot) cost more FIRST points until it's no longer an obvious choice. Then each team can decide if they want to pay a premium for parts that are guaranteed to be useful (notice that CIMs and batteries actually were priced in this way), or if they want to go after a higher potential value.

FIRST and AndyMark could collect some survey data in advance of next year's FIRST Choice to help them figure out what parts the teams are mostly likely to go after and how much they're worth to everybody.

[DonRotolo]

Perhaps everyone places a proposed order over a few days' time, and then the orders get filled at random, so it becomes more the luck of the draw for the high-demand items rather than who has the skill to log in and place an order fastest.

Anything high-demand might work this way, along with Nemo's idea to use price to help moderate demand. Low-demand/high-inventory stuff could be handled separately if necessary.

Dunno, there's just got to me a better way. I wonder if there's a community of thinkers smart enough to come up with one??

[Trying to Help]

Originally Posted by dcarr

I don't believe points will be visible until the login system is re-enabled tomorrow.

Has anyone else noticed that you can login now? I logged in to FIRST Choice, checked our remaining points balance, checked the orders status and *then* read the FRC Blog post about it opening up tomorrow.

Our points balance hasn't been corrected but I think I could still place an order tonight.