FIRST Choice Sunday redux

[coalhot]

Originally Posted by mman1506

I know vex's product release stream had 3000+ viewers and just as many or more probably went to vex's site. Vex had no problem handling the traffic without any slowdowns even while continually updating the site.

VEX did use youtube for their stream, they didn't use any sort of private hosting/custom site.

I am wondering why Andymark didn't purchase 3 months of hosting from a place like Amazon. They charge by usage, and there wouldn't be that much of an issue (I'm sure at any given moment, there are more than 3,000 users on Amazon).

Kudos to Andy and crew for trying to get it right though. It's better for them to cancel and reschedule then for a select few people getting in. I'm looking forward to using the system when rescheduled.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by coalhot

VEX did use youtube for their stream, they didn't use any sort of private hosting/custom site.

.

Oh, I know that. I was just using the youtube stream viewer count to estimate the traffic on their site.

[Andy Baker]

Folks,

We are putting together a report for FIRST tonight, and we have a meeting with them tomorrow. As soon as a decision for a re-release is made, I am sure that FIRST and our staff here at AndyMark will work hard to communicate this new info through our respective channels.

I personally appreciate your support and patience, but I also know that your time and passion about FIRST are very important. You are right in saying that this delay and waste of time is unacceptable. For that, I am sorry. Also, I do appreciate the time our staff has made to get this process working and I do promise that we will have a sound FIRST Choice service soon.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

[MooreteP]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

Folks,

We are putting together a report for FIRST tonight, and we have a meeting with them tomorrow. As soon as a decision for a re-release is made, I am sure that FIRST and our staff here at AndyMark will work hard to communicate this new info through our respective channels.

I personally appreciate your support and patience, but I also know that your time and passion about FIRST are very important. You are right in saying that this delay and waste of time is unacceptable. For that, I am sorry. Also, I do appreciate the time our staff has made to get this process working and I do promise that we will have a sound FIRST Choice service soon.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

Thanks Andy.

Just like our robots, if they worked well the first time we turned them on, we would be suspicious.

BTW, where are the waterproof cameras?

How about making the relaunch in the evening,(if it is during this week) when most of us (sorry, West Coast) are available?
The 3:00 time was better for Hawaii, of that I am sure.

I would be cool with next Saturday. Multi-tasking with wrapping gifts and cooking dinner and watching football worked for me yesterday and today.

[Foster]

"xyzTeam9876" Wow, I could do a much better job in doing a website. Just buy some cloud service, some HTML, really it isn't hard"

/sigh

There is more to e-commerce than just the 7 minutes you need to interact. Ton's of suppliers sent product. Need to get inventoried, put into pick sites, included into the inventory, priced by "points". Track all the teams and how many points they have. Web site. Credit card to pay for shipping. Order sheets. Pick orders. Pack. Ship. Track. Deal with problem orders (wrong order, wrong items, shipping issues). Customer service.

This is all a hard task.

And while AndyMark is making a 2000% markup on free parts (do the math), this isn't their core business. Amazing robot parts for a price that you can't get from a China distributor, Sunday shipping, tech and customer support that understand that you are on a 50 day deadline (that you've blown 45 days of) with two guys Mark and Andy that lay awake at night because they have been where you are now.

Free parts to you, a bonus.

But, I see people out there with their hands up going "Hey FIRST pick me for FIRST Choice. I want to be the site for that next year!". Go for it, I'm your first fan! You are a rock star!

The rest of you need to shut up. Sorry that that sounded harsh. You spent $6000 to be part of FIRST. Suppliers spent thousands in donations of parts. AM is trying their best to glue you together. FIRST isn't a business model, it's a donation model. Mark and Andy are smart guys, and I'm sure they did this with the best intentions (or has Mom says "The Road to Hell is Paved with the Best Intentions" )

It's not part of your $6000 birthright. It's free stuff as a bonus.

FIRST is partially duplicating an engineering lifecycle. Parts shortages, parts price changes, parts (insert verb) are part of the real world.

But, on a more personal level, I'm more disappointed in the mentors that have whined in this thread. Is the pressure that bad that 23 days before kickoff you are in a full meltdown? Really? Can I get a build site address so I can come Presidents Week in February to watch your team?

Mentors, we are leaders. Life is full of adversity. If this is the worst problem that you face in the next 10 weeks, I'll come kiss you on Einstein. Lead, don't teach people to whine. We have too many Lawyers that do that

[Jon K.]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

Folks,

We are putting together a report for FIRST tonight, and we have a meeting with them tomorrow. As soon as a decision for a re-release is made, I am sure that FIRST and our staff here at AndyMark will work hard to communicate this new info through our respective channels.

I personally appreciate your support and patience, but I also know that your time and passion about FIRST are very important. You are right in saying that this delay and waste of time is unacceptable. For that, I am sorry. Also, I do appreciate the time our staff has made to get this process working and I do promise that we will have a sound FIRST Choice service soon.

Sincerely,
Andy Baker

I posted the following message to my Facebook earlier, but I feel would better serve people here on Delphi.

"Dear AndyMark, Inc.,
I know a lot of people are angry right now, but they clearly are the ones who don't get GP. Being a long time FIRSTer, I remember when the KoP was the KoP, and you were grateful to just get that. The fact that we have this awesome new service with FIRST Choice is fantastic. I was a beta tester for FIRST choice this year, and there were no major issues. The fact that you have been open about everything has been fantastic. While you may only hear a lot of the negative today, please remember that there are still a ton of us in the FIRST community that appreciate the service you are offering us. I for one would rather continue to have the opening be postponed then to have massive issues dealing with it later. You can't please everyone, but at least you try.

Thanks again for all the hard work you do for us in FIRST.

Jon"

Also, I would just like to remind everyone of a time, not too long ago, where FIRST itself couldn't handle registration. It was something that was dealt with, and was something they had to learn and grow from. I know many of the people who work at AndyMark personally, and know that they all take this very seriously. They are some of the most dedicated people in the FIRST community.

I would like to once again applaud Andy, and the entire AndyMark team for all their work on this!

[Gdeaver]

Wow, My wife rolled out 2 major cloud software projects in 2013. They just worked on roll out. Minor revisions in a month later update. With OB care and the nightmares allot of my friends are having with software roll outs and now the First Choice melt down, I'm going to walk upstairs and bow before HER MAGNIFICENCE.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

It's not worth it for FIRST/AndyMark to invest in a web server that can handle 2000+ connections for 30 minutes when it only needs to handle at most* 10 connections for the rest of the season.

A 2 week lottery window would spread out the connections.

*Except maybe kickoff.

Not to knock Andy/FC crew, merely as an interest party - really, I'm just curious what exactly is happening here. Perhaps, after all of this is happening the developers would be kind enough to give the community a lessons learned document such that we can use this as a teachable moment on the difficulties of developing this type of system.

[itsjustmrb]

Originally Posted by adlasa

In my opinion this is unacceptable, Andymark is just wasting everyone's time. I postponed my Sunday plans on the understanding that the site would be fixed!

They should have allowed more time to fix the problem and not subject everyone to this time waster :| . I understand that it is hard to troubleshoot a large site but they could have at least given themselves more time to fix the problem, rather than give false promises.

There seem to be quite a few people upset about getting free parts. If people keep complaining, Andy and FIRST might just decide we don't need to spend 600 credits and can just use the cash in our pockets. We all need to relax and let them fix the bugs and be the Gracious Professionals that we are and receive the free parts when they become available.

Mr. B

[Coach Norm]

Originally Posted by Foster

The rest of you need to shut up. Sorry that that sounded harsh. You spent $6000 to be part of FIRST. Suppliers spent thousands in donations of parts. AM is trying their best to glue you together. FIRST isn't a business model, it's a donation model. Mark and Andy are smart guys, and I'm sure they did this with the best intentions (or has Mom says "The Road to Hell is Paved with the Best Intentions" )

It's not part of your $6000 birthright. It's free stuff as a bonus.

FIRST is partially duplicating an engineering lifecycle. Parts shortages, parts price changes, parts (insert verb) are part of the real world.

But, on a more personal level, I'm more disappointed in the mentors that have whined in this thread. Is the pressure that bad that 23 days before kickoff you are in a full meltdown? Really? Can I get a build site address so I can come Presidents Week in February to watch your team?

Mentors, we are leaders. Life is full of adversity. If this is the worst problem that you face in the next 10 weeks, I'll come kiss you on Einstein. Lead, don't teach people to whine. We have too many Lawyers that do that

Well said.

I completely agree that mentors should not only be setting the example but should also be more diligent in making sure their team understands that this complaining is not helping.

[MrBasse]

I don't blame anyone for complaining about this, it is frustrating. I changed my plans today after rushing home in a white out snowstorm yesterday to make it for the opening both times and found both efforts to be for not. Attacking AndyMark for this is unfortunate, as they are doing a great job of handling a very unfortunate situation. But when the man we look to as the face of the company comes out and says it is unacceptable...

I also don't get the whole free parts thing. According to FIRST: "FIRST Choice is a menu of items available to registered 2013 FRC teams, for free, as part of their Kit of Parts." Yes, it costs you nothing. However, FC is a part of the KOP which, unless I'm mistaken, is a part of your very costly registration fee. Coming from a team that has never had the money to pay that registration fee with more that a few hours of comfort in three years, we depend on the parts that are in FIRST Choice. A lot of what we want is what used to be given out every year to everyone. Without those "free" parts, we don't expose our students to pneumatics, perform to our expectations, test new ideas we couldn't otherwise afford, or have these "spare parts" I keep hearing other teams talk about.

That being said, it is out of our hands. I got to avoid what I was going to do today and spent the day with my daughter, so I am happy. If I have to do this during class, I'll adapt and make do. If we miss out on most of what we want/need like last year, we'll adapt and make do. We're still going to build a robot, and we will still have a great time, but we will also probably still remember the time FIRST Choice took a dump. I don't think anyone should be mad, or for that matter I don't think anyone really is mad. However, I think this might be the best place to vent if venting is needed. After all, nobody else in the world is going to understand why this website is so important to those of us on Chief Delphi.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by itsjustmrb

There seem to be quite a few people upset about getting free parts. If people keep complaining, Andy and FIRST might just decide we don't need to spend 600 credits and can just use the cash in our pockets. We all need to relax and let them fix the bugs and be the Gracious Professionals that we are and receive the free parts when they become available.

Mr. B

They're not free parts. FIRST Choice is part of the KOP. Since there are so many teams now, suppliers can't offer one of everything to every team, for example compressors. Everyone used to get a compressor, but now they're in FIRST Choice, and only the teams who want a compressor try and get one. It's still part of FRC that we pay for, they're not just free toys that we can play with that might be useful.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

It's a frustrating situation for all of us, including those at FIRST and AndyMark, I'm sure.

It takes a lot of guts to come out and tell folks that your website has failed, for the second time. I admire the folks behind all this, and having been in a similar situation, do not envy them one bit. I mean, do you think Andy was happy to have to write that message?

Believe me, this 'problem' was not due to a lack of effort or planning or testing. Sometimes, things happen. I for one am cutting them all the slack they want, even if this doesn't fly until next year.

(On the other hand: We are all problem solvers, we love to learn from problems others encounter, and so releasing that report Andy mentioned would be fascinating, for me at least.)

Originally Posted by Foster

If this is the worst problem that you face in the next 10 weeks, I'll come kiss you on Einstein.

Honest, you have to believe me, this is definitely not the worst, please just don't kiss me!

[itsjustmrb]

Originally Posted by Gregor

They're not free parts. FIRST Choice is part of the KOP. Since there are so many teams now, suppliers can't offer one of everything to every team, for example compressors. Everyone used to get a compressor, but now they're in FIRST Choice, and only the teams who want a compressor try and get one. It's still part of FRC that we pay for, they're not just free toys that we can play with that might be useful.

I respectfully disagree. I am pretty sure few, if any, paid their entry fee in order to get FIRST choice parts and are totally depending on them to build their robot. My point was that if we keep complaining about the unfortunate circumstances that are taking place, we might as well just pay for the compressors, because people are doing their best to get the parts to you free of charge. And yes, i am aware that we pay shipping charges, which we should...unless that is part of the registration fees also. I still consider them free or bonus parts. I did not pay $13,000 in registration fees to depend on FIRST choice parts, but I do appreciate the effort that is taking place to make them available.

It is not my intent to start a flame war here. If you would like to discuss this in more detail, please feel free to send me a pm.

Tia,

Mr. B

[jsasaki]

Originally Posted by itsjustmrb

There seem to be quite a few people upset about getting free parts. If people keep complaining, Andy and FIRST might just decide we don't need to spend 600 credits and can just use the cash in our pockets. We all need to relax and let them fix the bugs and be the Gracious Professionals that we are and receive the free parts when they become available.

Mr. B

you're getting them for free? we're paying thousands of dollars for these parts