**FIRST EMAIL**/SMC Pneumatics and 2007 FRC Game Pieces Purchasing Information

[Rich Wong]

Greetings Teams:

SMC Pneumatics Bag

Please be advised that when you pick up your Kit of Parts tomorrow, the SMC Pneumatics Bag will not be available. Due to scheduling delays, SMC's donated products will be delivered directly to your Shipping Contact at a later date. More information will follow soon.

We're sorry for the delay in providing you with these products. We plan on having these shipped out as soon as possible and encourage you to use the pneumatics provided by SMC in your 2007 robotics design.

Purchasing 2007 FRC Game Pieces

Information on how to purchase the 2007 FRC game pieces will be sent to teams via email, on Saturday (1/6/07), after Kickoff. FIRST will make available the actual game-specific pieces to be used during the 2007 FIRST Robotics Competition season.
Go Teams!

[chris31]

The part in red is interesting. Makes me think we will have something custom and cool to mess with this year.

[Raul]

I am just glad we will be able to purchase them and not have to build them like we did in 2005.

Raul

[Rich Wong]

Originally Posted by chris31

The part in red is interesting. Makes me think we will have something custom and cool to mess with this year.

..and it scares me that it maybe a custom item!
Hopefully it is not breakable.

[Jeff Rodriguez]

It doesn't say anything about the game pieces being custom. Instead, I think they're trying to avoid a situation like last year where Poof-Slinky got blindsided with larger orders from FIRST teams.

[Manoel]

Originally Posted by Raul

I am just glad we will be able to purchase them and not have to build them like we did in 2004.

Raul

2005, right?
Anyway, you only say that because you're not an international team.

We'd rather build anything than having to buy and ship internationally.

[Andrew Blair]

Yep, almost definitely no PVC assemblies this year!

[Joel J]

The way that sentence was written makes it sound as though FIRST is making the game pieces, and distributing them to teams (at cost).. is that the case?

[BrianR]

I think the idea is that they are either purchasing them (to prevent a lack of supply), or building them (to assure the game pieces are the same). Either way, it is an improvement over how it has been done in the past.

I'm giving FIRST credit for realizing that we deprived the children of the world of Poof balls for a long time last year, and they decided to compensate for that this year by buying enough in advance to prevent another catastrophic shortage of Poof balls.

[Mr MOE]

In addition to the benefits already mentioned in this thread, one reason might be economic. If the game pieces are "off the shelf" items, FIRST might have brokered a deal where they could purchase mass quantities at a significant discount. As long as some of that discount can be paid forward to teams, the benefits would continue.

I'm just interested on how FIRST will handle a significant volume of web or phone orders and how quickly the games pieces will be delivered.