FIRST Vendors - extra BOULDERS

[cad321]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Did any opt into the "extra game pieces" option FIRST provided to international teams?

If so, how many extra balls did you get?

2386 opted for this and received 1 extra ball. We were extremely disappointed with this. We gave up 180 points in first choice this year to receive a ball that is worth 50 points in first choice right now. That is over a 300% mark up. Even if they wanted to argue extra shipping for the game piece it is ridiculous.

[Bob Steele]

If you order from Gopherballs.... don't forget to sign up for the newsletter. It will give you a 15% savings on your first order. This brought our price per ball down to $28.86. We ordered 12 balls and the shipping to Seattle was 58.87 so don't forget about shipping. FYI

[GreyingJay]

Originally Posted by cad321

2386 opted for this and received 1 extra ball. We were extremely disappointed with this. We gave up 180 points in first choice this year to receive a ball that is worth 50 points in first choice right now. That is over a 300% mark up. Even if they wanted to argue extra shipping for the game piece it is ridiculous.

Sorry to hear this. We struggled with the decision whether to opt-in. Ultimately we decided not to because we figured we still probably wouldn't get enough game pieces to be useful, and unfortunately you seem to have confirmed this suspicion.

Using last year's game as our only reference, we figured that each team got a couple of totes and noodles and one recycle bin, but to really test out a full mechanism you would need a minimum of 6 totes to build one full stack, possibly even more if you wanted to simulate a landfill.

[cad321]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

Using last year's game as our only reference, we figured that each team got a couple of totes and noodles and one recycle bin, but to really test out a full mechanism you would need a minimum of 6 totes to build one full stack, possibly even more if you wanted to simulate a landfill.

Using last years game as reference is exactly why we decided to opt for this. The totes we got in the kit last year compared to the ones we had a local company make (to save time on shipping and shipping costs) were slightly different creating issues in our stacking mechanism. Having additional official totes from the start would have helped us immensely (even one would have helped). So we figured we would opt in to this because it would have helped in years past.

Clearly that was not the case this year.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by cad321

Using last years game as reference is exactly why we decided to opt for this. The totes we got in the kit last year compared to the ones we had a local company make (to save time on shipping and shipping costs) were slightly different creating issues in our stacking mechanism. Having additional official totes from the start would have helped us immensely (even one would have helped). So we figured we would opt in to this because it would have helped in years past.

Clearly that was not the case this year.

Have you not gotten totes in the KOP for years? We had so many from years and years that we didn't have to buy any extras. We did buy 2 extra yellow totes and 2 extra bins for auton but thats it.

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Have you not gotten totes in the KOP for years? We had so many from years and years that we didn't have to buy any extras. We did buy 2 extra yellow totes and 2 extra bins for auton but thats it.

IIRC, only the 2014 and 2015 totes were the same model - previous years had different flanges along the edge though they were similar in overall size. Those flange differences may have mattered a great deal to some teams.