Radio Shack and Robovation

[Joe Ross]

I think this is great!

The EDU controllers are very usefull for small, or even large projects. One of my friends used one for a class project this year, and it let him concentrate a lot less on the electronics and more on the code.

Right now, the main reason it isn't more wide spread is the cost and marketing. Getting them into Radio Shack solves both of those. Marketing is easily taken care of, and cost will heavily decrease once IFI starts making the volume needed to supply radio shack. Even if each store in the country orders 5, that will still far exceed the volume that FIRST and Battlebots uses.

This is a great step for Innovation FIRST.

[westfalia]

I'm pretty sure it's not a rumor at all. At nationals, I was talking to some pretty important people from radioshack. They came up to our pit and started asking me what I thought about the EDU kits. And of course I told them that I thought they were great.

So if they'll sell them in stores, I wonder if they'll take off like they did in teams. As a kit to use as a hobby, I wonder if they'll be confusing. Programming is confusing to me. I'd probably understand it given some time though.

So when will it be that we can buy our OI's and speed controllers at radioshack? I want to see that day, you know. When we tell a member of the team in week 5.75 of the build season, "hey, go pick up a new speed controller!"

[Adam Y.]

That's odd I remeber reading about a robotics kit going to be offered at Radioshack long before this thread ever came out.