IFI vs FTC? Both offering competitions for next year!

[fredliu168]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

Yabbut... The average FIRST FTC team buys two starter kits, not one. With the $275 registration fee and $50 battery kit (something you leave out of your Vex comparison), most teams are spending at least $925 (with the FTC discount, thats more like $750) already. If you add in two more transmitters and batteries for another driver, you are over $1,000. If FIRST can provide a kit with enough parts to build a real competition robot (something the basic Vex kit does not) and registration for under $1,000, they are in the ball park. The Washington regional is free, so I don't include a regional fee. I also can't see anyone building a competitive tournament robot for much under $900-1,000 in Vex parts. Vex is great, but it ain't cheap.

How do you know the average team buys two starter kits? Did you do a survey of teams?
I know several teams that purchased a starter kit in their first year along with battery and built up this year by purchasing additional parts. This means they spent around $350 per year in parts. If they were to do IFI, they may need to spend around $300 on additional parts for next year to continue the program. For FTC they would need to spend $1000 not to mention registeration on the mysterious starter kit.
I'm not sure exactly what is contained in the starter kit for FTC so I cannot say if this is a good deal or not. However, many teams who invested a great deal of money on creating several teams (I'm thinking of woburn who competed with 8 teams in Ontario ) to teach students with a fun competition now cannot make nearly as many FTC teams.

I don't what you mean by "reliability." You seem to be speaking to "will the technical platform ever change?," not reliability. I'm not sure what "bad habit" you are referring to. The real FVC/FTC program is just finishing its second year, and the 12x12 field hasn't changed. A little birdie tells me that FTC plans to stick with a 12x12 field (even though I would prefer an expansion to 12x16 or so, and moving the drivers to the ends like FRC).

When I said reliability, I meant reliablility of the platform for the organization. Perhaps I could have worded it better, but my point is valid.
Also, technically either FTC is in its first year or third/fourth year. In the first/second pilot years the field is different from its 2006 pilot year and its current field.

Are there really more IFI Robotics teams than international FRC and FLL teams?



So, you don't trust anything FIRST says, but you believe everything in the IFI press release. You give full weight to all potentially positive aspects of IFI, but discount everything FIRST has been good at all these years. I think your decision must be right for you, but I doubt you've changed any minds.

Obviously there are not more IFI robotics teams than FLL teams. I do believe IFI international teams have already exceeded FIRST in FRC and FTC in just its first year. FLL has had many years to grow (not sure the exact number).

Also, why would you say I don't trust anything FIRST says ? I may have missed this somewhere, but did FIRST say this kit was permanant or going to be for at least X years? My other points are based on what was said by FIRST (approximate $1000 kit cost). I really like the FIRST organization and what it stands for. I just really don't like how they handled the situation so far.

I think my points are probably agreed upon by many teams doing FTC now. I am not a spokesperson for IFI nor do I pretend to be. I believe I also stated I have not chosen which platform to go with. My points supported IFI mainly because FIRST has left us in the dark in many places. My opinions can definitely change once I see the kit and the costs associated with it. That is why I said this is "my initial thoughts".

It's good to be objective, and I merely wanted to point out my thoughts.

[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by fredliu168

How do you know the average team buys two starter kits? Did you do a survey of teams?

I haven't done a survey, but I know people who have the data. I got it by asking someone at FIRST "how many kits does the typical FIRST FTC team buy on the discount program." Having watched our club build five very competitive FVC/FTC robots, I will add that you could build a robot from the basic kit, but it is unlikely to be competitive. With the SDK at $100, I don't see how you can field a team for $350. Do they use the base code?

I figure the basic cost to be $300 for a kit, $70-100 for batteries, at least $100 for additional parts and sensors, $100 for the SDK, extra transmitter $130. That's $700-730. If my contact at FIRST is right (they were) FTC teams buy a second starter kit, which means you might not need the extra transmitter, so let's say it's $170 more (since IFI won't give you the FIRST discount) for a total of $900. The $300 competition robot simply isn't possible, if you want the robot to be something other than a BLT.

I know that we spent over $1,000 last year to field two robots, and dropped another $2,000 this year to field three and build one more as a test mule. Owning $3,000 worth of Vex parts makes it pretty certain we will participate in the IFI program along with FTC.

Of course, our club visited the Seattle Regional this week and they all have the FRC bug now. May God have mercy on our souls...

[Gdeaver]

Our team, team 104 will most likely not field a FRC team next year. 104 was a joint team of 3 high schools. Hopefully there will be a resurrection of 3 VEX/FTC teams. One from each high school as an after school program with occasional meetings with outside mentors. This whole split is going to cause problems. The way information is being released, there is a good chance that we will not be able to make a choice until the summer. My experience is that when dealing with schools you better have you plan done before June. It's difficult to get anything done in the summer and other programs will have already grabbed the cash. It would be in the the best interest of IFI, First and everyone else to spit out the specific info now. That way teams can make their choice and develop a preliminary plan before June.

I believe both IFI and First have missed an important opportunity to get these programs into the school. It has to do with the robot controller. The robot controllers as they are now are only good for robots. If the developers had expanded the platform a little more the controllers could also be data loggers and would then be usable in the class room. Our school district has equipment that is basically repackaged NI devices and a lab curriculum. If NI had the foresight to unify the new robot controller and their lab equipment the FTC would be a no brainier. One could get a school district to by the brains and sensors for the class room. Then all that would be needed for the robot is some metal, gears and motors. The program would be an easy sell.
It's not to late. With the NTX's communication ports NI could make this work.
We have classes were the teachers are not up to date having students do primitive experiments and graph the data by hand. Using a TI calculator system is not much better. With a choice of bring lab instrumentation in to the class room or running a FTC program, I would pick the class room and admin. will to. If they are the same it's a no brainier for the school admin. Our school district will be buying thousands of dollars of lab equipment this year. To bad our robot program can't be integrated into that budget. Does any body else see the value of integration?