2007 Kit

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Sorry Kit, but you are flat out wrong. The requirement to use the new battery supplied in the Kit Of Parts (and for that matter, any other component from the KOP) has absolutely NOTHING to do with an effort to create business for a specific supplier. It has everything to do with guaranteeing that the field is as fair as possible to all teams.

The fact that the MK-12 batteries and the previously available Exide batteries can both turn over a motorcycle engine is interesting, but totally irrelevant. It takes about 90 seconds of research to determine that the batteries are NOT the same. Their characteristics, charge rates, and - most importantly - discharge rates are different. And those differences have significant implications for robot performance in a competition application such as FIRST. To ensure that the performance of the power system used in the competition is predictable and consistent for all teams, FIRST has to require that every team use the same make and model of battery.

So next time, before anyone accuses FIRST of being in the pocket of the sponsoring corporations, they might spend a minute and a half to actually apply some of that critical analytical ability that we are supposed to be demonstrating as educated engineers, and think objectively about the rationale that might be used for the various decisions that are made regarding the competition, Kit Of Parts, and robot requirements. You might find that it is not really due to some nefarious financial plot on the part of the people that are supporting this program, but that there is actually an understandable, logical reason that is obvious once you think about it.

-dave

Sorry about my accusations, Dave. I agree that FIRST is very conscientious in its decisions about robot specs and all other aspects of the competition design. I still feel that Exide, MK-12, Yuasa, or any other "name brand" battery of the type we use would perform comparably for our purposes. The most likely exception would be weight. There might be slight variations of internal resistance in the batteries, but that would be the case between different samples of the same brand. Given that we could get two or three "good" matches from a fully charged battery if we wanted to chance it, I think it's safe to assume that any brand of non-defective battery of the style we use would perform well for one match.

Again, I apologize to anyone I may have offended and promise not to do it again.