SHIFTparts - turning inventory into useful parts

[Shifter]

At MakeShift, our motto of "making the most with what you have and then working really hard to expand your resources" includes freeing up inventory that has accumulated over time on our shelves, collaborating with the community, and hopefully ending up with parts that every participating team is more likely to find useful on their own prototypes and robots. Every team is different and one team's unused surplus may be on another team's wish list.

The problem:

• veteran FRC teams - accumulate piles of parts that they never use
• young FRC teams - never have enough of the right part
• rookie FRC teams - have no parts (besides those included in KoP) to experiment or prototype with

The solution:

SHIFTparts - a central database which allows participating teams to post their excess inventory. Teams also indicate any parts they need. Teams make use of the database to find other teams and arrange a SHIFT (swap) of parts. Instead of parts sitting on a shelf collecting dust, they become part of a moving, functioning robot.

For 2016, MakeShift is running a pilot of our SHIFTparts team-to-team part exchange. For practical purposes we're limiting our pilot to wheels only and to the teams attending the Waterloo Regional. For the pilot we're using a simple google sheet where teams can list their wheel inventory and needs and then arrange an exchange among themselves. 4039 receives no proceeds from this endeavour. Participating teams are asked to donate one wheel for every ten they SHIFT. All donated wheels will be distributed to 2017 rookie teams attending the 2016 STEMley Cup Championship.

We'll see how the pilot goes this season and look to expand part re-SHIFT-trobution in future years.

Teams competing at the 2016 Waterloo Regional can contact us to participate.

[Jim Wilks]

Excellent idea!

Thanks for getting this started.

[nuclearnerd]

It is a great idea! I'll see what our team can add to the list on the weekend. Are you doing anything for rookies who have nothing to trade (except for what's in their KOP)?

[Lil' Lavery]

Any plans to allow teams to add their own columns to the sheet? Currently it's only covering wheels from AndyMark and VexPro. There are numerous other providers out there that could interest teams.

[Christopher149]

Kind of reminds me of the CD swap feature that CD used to have.

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Christopher149

Kind of reminds me of the CD swap feature that CD used to have.

Speaking of which, what happened to the CD Swap feature? Was it taken down due to problems with its operation? Lack of interest?

In all honesty, I was just looking for it to post that we have some Talon SR speed controllers we're not using (new ones and used ones), but couldn't find it anymore...