[FRC Blog] FIRST Choice - Update for 2015

[SenorZ]

Whatever happens, I, and my team, greatly appreciate the opportunity to get free materials.

And we love that AndyMark is doing what they can to provide us a storefront to choose those materials.

In the past two years we've used every FIRSTChoice item either on our robot or in our workshop.

If the process becomes more "fair" for all teams, all the better.

[Foster]

Looks like they will go until ALL of your money is spent. It looks like you should put everything you want on the list, even if it exceeds your FIRST Choice dollars.

If it goes the way I think it will the FC larder will be empty at the end.

I had suggested a similar plan, but I also had an item limit, so that there would be some for later teams.

[wilsonmw04]

I read it twice, but did it state when window shopping will be open?

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

I read it twice, but did it state when window shopping will be open?

11/25/14 FIRST Choice login information is live in TIMS.
FIRST Choice opens for window shopping & credit allotments published.

11/25 at noon ET.

[DonRotolo]

This is simply great, a HUGE leap forward.

Originally Posted by Foster

I had suggested a similar plan, but I also had an item limit, so that there would be some for later teams.

Clearly they heard your message.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Foster

Looks like they will go until ALL of your money is spent. It looks like you should put everything you want on the list, even if it exceeds your FIRST Choice dollars.

If it goes the way I think it will the FC larder will be empty at the end.

I had suggested a similar plan, but I also had an item limit, so that there would be some for later teams.

My interpretation, which certainly could be wrong, is that this system does impose limits on a particular item.

The way I see this working is that each line is a single item. So if you want 4 Widgets as your most important item and 2 Turbo Encabulators as your second choice your list looks like this.

1. Widget
2. Widget
3. Widget
4. Widget
5. Turbo Encabulator
6. Turbo Encabulator

So before you get your second Widget every other team has received their first round item and those lower on the list have received their second round item.

So if there are 1000 Widgets and a lot of the teams have decided that is a must have item then your chance of getting your second Widget is low and your third or fourth would be very unlikely.

Again I could be wrong, but that is my interpretation of how the system will work.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by Mr V

My interpretation, which certainly could be wrong, is that this system does impose limits on a particular item.

The way I see this working is that each line is a single item. So if you want 4 Widgets as your most important item and 2 Turbo Encabulators as your second choice your list looks like this.

1. Widget
2. Widget
3. Widget
4. Widget
5. Turbo Encabulator
6. Turbo Encabulator

So before you get your second Widget every other team has received their first round item and those lower on the list have received their second round item.

So if there are 1000 Widgets and a lot of the teams have decided that is a must have item then your chance of getting your second Widget is low and your third or fourth would be very unlikely.

Again I could be wrong, but that is my interpretation of how the system will work.

The linked flow chart shows a step to check the quantity of the current item/line in the priority list against the current stock. So it appears it supports more than one of an item per line in the priority list. They don't state a limit on this quantity, though there is also the upper cap imposed by your credit balance.

[Foster]

I assumed you could ask for a quantity like you could last year. It makes sense to have that, for example I'd like the new "AM Spider-Man Wheels" for my 6 wheel drive base:

Team 6666
6 - AM Spider Man Wheels
2 - Vexpro Cat Shifter
1 - Gizmo
1 - A different Gizmo
4 - CIM Coolers

I'd want to order all six at one time, that way if I don't get them I can plan on something else. Going 6 rounds and only getting 5 wheels would be annoying.

I guess we will wait and see what it looks like in the end.

But let me be the first in 2015 to say

Parts from FIRST Choice are not something you paid for, they are additional free items from participating sponsors.

You paid a registration fee, which goes to registration, it does not go to the event you signed up.

Remember to write a thank you note to the vendor that supplied your FC parts and to the event committee thanking them for their hard efforts and support of FIRST FRC.

[MARS_James]

This is a great vast improvements over previous years and I was worried about the Random rank thing until they clarified that at the end of the order we go back serpentine style. The flow chart really helped in understanding how the process would work and answered most of the questions that I had about the system.

My only dislike is there not being a hard quantity limit on items (besides number of credits), Now I am not saying that we should have a limit of not above X number of anything but every item should have its own limit assigned to it. For example standard wheels (any thing on a tank drive so Omni included) should have a hard limit of 8, while mecanum wheel sets (a left and right) should have a hard limit of 2. Basically use logic to decided the max number of an item that a team could logically need for 1 robot.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Foster

I assumed you could ask for a quantity like you could last year. It makes sense to have that, for example I'd like the new "AM Spider-Man Wheels" for my 6 wheel drive base: ...

The flow chart would indicate that neither of these answers is true. You can specify n "items(s)" in each priority list slot:

Get (next) top Item on Priority List --> Does Team have sufficient credits for the item(s)?

However, if you don't have enough credits for n items, you get some x items you can afford:

[No] --> Does Team have sufficient credits for at least one? Yes--> Determine max number of requested items Team can afford. --> Is the quantity available?...

(emphases mine) Still, this is great.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Siri

The flow chart would indicate that neither of these answers is true. You can specify n "items(s)" in each priority list slot:

Get (next) top Item on Priority List --> Does Team have sufficient credits for the item(s)?

However, if you don't have enough credits for n items, you get some x items you can afford:

[No] --> Does Team have sufficient credits for at least one? Yes--> Determine max number of requested items Team can afford. --> Is the quantity available?...

(emphases mine) Still, this is great.

I find that a bit odd, I guess it will come down to how they do quantity limits and what items end up in high demand. If they had speed controllers again, lets say 200, and they did a cap at 2 per team, then only the first 100 teams that asked for them would get them. This seems like an odd system instead of having the first 200 teams all get one.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

I find that a bit odd, I guess it will come down to how they do quantity limits and what items end up in high demand. If they had speed controllers again, lets say 200, and they did a cap at 2 per team, then only the first 100 teams that asked for them would get them. This seems like an odd system instead of having the first 200 teams all get one.

I agree. It also seems awkward for Foster's case of requesting 6 weeks for a 6wd, and ending up with 5. It seems like anything you want a full count of needs to be high on your list (even higher than how much you actually want it, unless you're willing to accept, e.g., a technology-push 5wd). Conversely, as you describe, items that are useful individually aren't distributed fully by the system.

Complicated problem we've got here. I'm glad they're taking steps towards handling it, even if it does have some odd consequences.

[Foster]

Mr V posted what he thought a sample input would be

1. Widget
2. Widget
3. Widget
4. Widget
5. Turbo Encabulator
6. Turbo Encabulator


I changed that in my mind to
1. AM Spider Man Wheels
2. AM Spider Man Wheels
3. AM Spider Man Wheels
4. AM Spider Man Wheels
5. AM Spider Man Wheels
6. AM Spider Man Wheels
7. Turbo Encabulator
8. Turbo Encabulator

And realized that I'd need to be successful for 6 rounds to get my 6 wheels. By six rounds I'd be with people saying "hey I missed out on the expensive stuff, might as well ask for wheels"

My original proposal had a user order quantity level in it. FC would set a cap on the quantity of a given item you could order at one time. So if the order cap for AM Spider Man Wheels was 8, and a cap on Turbo Encabulaors of 1 then I'd have a order that looked like:

1. AM Spider Man Wheels - Quantity 6
2. Turbo Encabulator - Quantity 1
3. Turbo Encabulator - Quantity 1

And I posted away!!

But it appears that I'm the first of the 2015 season to get a Siri Smack(tm) for not actually carefully reading the directions / rules / documentation.

I will cop to missing the "Does Team have sufficient credits for the item(s). So assuming that means I can order more than one of a single item per round, then I can put my request for AM Spider Man Wheels in and have some hope of getting 6. Still, it means there is a possibility that I could only get 5 (or 1).

AllenGregoryIV does pose an interesting question on how / if they will put a cap on items. I'd guess that wheels will have a higher cap than 3D printers.

The flowchart does not show an item cap, other than what's created by the team budget. I'll need to wait for version 2 of the flowchart and carefully read it.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by Foster

Mr V posted what he thought a sample input would be

1. Widget
2. Widget
3. Widget
4. Widget
5. Turbo Encabulator
6. Turbo Encabulator


I changed that in my mind to
1. AM Spider Man Wheels
2. AM Spider Man Wheels
3. AM Spider Man Wheels
4. AM Spider Man Wheels
5. AM Spider Man Wheels
6. AM Spider Man Wheels
7. Turbo Encabulator
8. Turbo Encabulator

And realized that I'd need to be successful for 6 rounds to get my 6 wheels. By six rounds I'd be with people saying "hey I missed out on the expensive stuff, might as well ask for wheels"

My original proposal had a user order quantity level in it. FC would set a cap on the quantity of a given item you could order at one time. So if the order cap for AM Spider Man Wheels was 8, and a cap on Turbo Encabulaors of 1 then I'd have a order that looked like:

1. AM Spider Man Wheels - Quantity 6
2. Turbo Encabulator - Quantity 1
3. Turbo Encabulator - Quantity 1

And I posted away!!

But it appears that I'm the first of the 2015 season to get a Siri Smack(tm) for not actually carefully reading the directions / rules / documentation.

I will cop to missing the "Does Team have sufficient credits for the item(s). So assuming that means I can order more than one of a single item per round, then I can put my request for AM Spider Man Wheels in and have some hope of getting 6. Still, it means there is a possibility that I could only get 5 (or 1).

AllenGregoryIV does pose an interesting question on how / if they will put a cap on items. I'd guess that wheels will have a higher cap than 3D printers.

The flowchart does not show an item cap, other than what's created by the team budget. I'll need to wait for version 2 of the flowchart and carefully read it.

My interpretation of item(s) is that some items are sold as a quantity of one and some items are sold in quantities of more than one. For example if I remember correctly one of the items available in previous years was a two pack of batteries. I can also see something that you need more than one of to be useful/useable, like wheels being sold as a set of 6. So you would have one part number that would be for more than one item. Again I could be wrong, that is just how I read it.

[ratdude747]

Possibly ignorant question/comment:

Under the new system, I take it teams will get advance notification on what window shopping items they actually received?

In such a case, say you wanted 6 wheels but only were able to get 5, so what, beats getting 0 (that's only 1 wheel not 6 that needs bought). Sure, lead times and shipping delays make this a pain, but if we assume similar COTS rules going into 2015 (as per AA R13), knowing what you didn't get, you could order said part(s) ahead of time and not have to worry about shipping delays and lead times during the season (unless there was a very severe part shortage or the like).

Just a thought.