FRC Blog - Get Ready to Make FIRST Choices

[Joe Ross]

Looks like only around 50% of teams submitted lists.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Looks like only around 50% of teams submitted lists.

Last year, I think for round 2, 1689 teams submitted lists.

[Paul Copioli]

Hey Mark,

Your Top 10 list doesn't seem to have the actual top 10, but Top 10 that sold out.

For example:

919 Victor 888s were taken
848 PDPs were taken
799 4" Stealth Wheels were taken

...

You get the point.

Was this on purpose to highlight the sold out items? I am just curious.

Thanks,
Paul

[Mark McLeod]

Last season's round 1 of FIRST Choice had 1806 teams on the submitted list or ~62% of the team headcount at the time.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Hey Mark,

Your Top 10 list doesn't seem to have the actual top 10, but Top 10 that sold out.
...
Was this on purpose to highlight the sold out items? I am just curious.

Hi Paul,

I indeed highlighted the sold out items first, sort of treating them as a percentage sold vs available.
It wasn't meant to be a top ten volume, since it was a random volume restricted list, but a top ten popularity.
The high volume, max quantity limited, high credit per piece, sold out items were obviously most in demand.
However, the more limited quantities of most of those out-of-stock items impact judging whether they would have "sold" a lot more or not. That's also why I limited the list to ten and cut off the lower end of items that had fewer than 200 originally available.

We'd need a bunch more people to post their complete results lists (with misses too) to tell us which round some of the items ran out, hence their more absolute popularity. For instance, we know from posts approximately which pass the Talon SRX's or the air tanks ran out.

That's why I posted the entire list, so people could do their own sorting and interpretations of the results.

[IndySam]

The Goats are pretty happy with our haul.

1 fc16-064 Talon SRX (fc16-064) 100 1 1 100
2 fc16-066 Victor SP (fc16-066) 100 1 1 100
3 fc16-036 12V Battery NP18-12 (fc16-036) 50 1 1 50
4 fc16-021 Air Volume Tank, 32 cu. in., Black Plastic AVTPP-35
(fc16-021)
20 2 2 40
5 fc16-022 Pneumatic Control Module (fc16-022) 100 1 1 100
6 fc16-069 Pneumatic Pressure Switch (fc16-069) 20 1 1 20
7 fc16-104 Parker Fitting Kit (fc16-104) 50 1 1 50
8 fc16-102 Compressor, Model 90C (fc16-102) 100 1 1 100
9 fc16-003 AndyMark 9015 Motor am-0912 (fc16-003) 20 1 1 20
10 fc16-059 Motor and Harness (fc16-059) 20 1 2 20
11 fc16-023 Power Distribution Panel (fc16-023) 200 0 1 0
12 fc16-104 Parker Fitting Kit (fc16-104) 50 0 1 0
13 fc16-003 AndyMark 9015 Motor am-0912 (fc16-003) 20 0 1 0
14 fc16-044 Microsoft Lifecam HD3000 Camera (fc16-044) 20 0 1 0
15 fc16-021 Air Volume Tank, 32 cu. in., Black Plastic AVTPP-35
(fc16-021)
20 0 2 0
16 fc16-044 Microsoft Lifecam HD3000 Camera (fc16-044) 20 0 1 0
17 fc16-040 Freelin-Wade Blue Tubing (fc16-040) 10 0 1 0
18 fc16-042 Freelin-Wade Transparent Blue Tubing (fc16-
042)
10 0 1 0
19 fc16-046 Ratcheting Wrench Set,SAE,12 pt.,8 PC (fc16-
046)
20 0 2 0
20 fc16-029 Encoder Kit AMT103-V (fc16-029) 10 0 2 0
21 fc16-065 Victor 888 (fc16-065) 50 0 4 0

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

Last season's round 1 of FIRST Choice had 1806 teams on the submitted list or ~62% of the team headcount at the time.

Interesting. What do the other 38% do? Just do open ordering after the priority rounds? Are there perhaps teams that don't realize this option is available to them?

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Interesting. What do the other 38% do? Just do open ordering after the priority rounds? Are there perhaps teams that don't realize this option is available to them?

My pure suppositions include:

• Some teams haven't actually paid or gotten a PO to FIRST, and aren't eligible yet.
• Others don't like to put their own credit card up front and are trying to find a way for the school business dept to pay for shipping instead of the teacher/mentor.
• More teams are still organizing or don't really start until Kickoff.
• Some Main Contacts just don't know or are extremely busy with pre-holiday class load/running other clubs and meeting other deadlines.
• Procrastinators

Even shepherded a couple of rookies through the process last year, neither one ordered on time, even when I offered to pay the shipping.

[MrRoboSteve]

• Some mentors were sick during the week leading up to the deadline, and botched it.

[Jon Stratis]

I was at an event on Saturday with a few rookies, we walked them through and made sure they were all set up with a priority list. The big problem for rookies is knowing what to get - if you've never built one of these robots before, don't know what you're getting in the KoP, and don't have any stock yet it's really hard to know what is going to be valuable for you. I know the teams I helped with had no clue what to put on the list.

[Michael Corsetto]

Any stats on what percentage of FIRST Choice Credits go unused each year?

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Interesting. What do the other 38% do? Just do open ordering after the priority rounds? Are there perhaps teams that don't realize this option is available to them?

We're much more intentional at pre-season planning this year than we were last year. For 2015, we did not order anything except a second control system until after kickoff. In 2012-2014, due to limited resources we waited until we knew the game before ordering anything above what we already had on hand.

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Any stats on what percentage of FIRST Choice Credits go unused each year?

I'm also curious how much stuff doesn't get claimed each year. I suppose it simply gets added to the next year's inventory. Perhaps they give out more FIRST Choice credits than they have stuff, knowing they won't be used?

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by Aren Siekmeier

I'm also curious how much stuff doesn't get claimed each year.

The answer to part of that is easy:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150914...com/everything

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

The answer to part of that is easy:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150914...com/everything

Hmmm, a lot of familiar looking items on that list, which implies the answer to Aren's second question.

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

The big problem for rookies is knowing what to get - if you've never built one of these robots before, don't know what you're getting in the KoP, and don't have any stock yet it's really hard to know what is going to be valuable for you. I know the teams I helped with had no clue what to put on the list.

"Any parts is better than no parts" was kind of our rallying cry here, but we did look carefully at last year's kit of parts to see what we might expect to receive this year, and used our FIRST Choice credits to augment that list.