New FTC Platform

[Bongle]

Originally Posted by gblake

Sorry - I meant to say that any split between IFI and FIRST is irrelevant. What does a split between them have to do with whether or not the FTC rules say that I must buy and use a Vex kit?

Suppose some other non profit wants to run a robotics program using Vex kits - Must they "join" with IFI? And then later on if they "split" must they stop using Vex products? I think not, they and their participants can simply buy and use the kits. - Definite Red Herring.

IFI's involvement goes far beyond happening to be the supplier of the kits that FTC uses, doesn't it?. I thought there are IFI staff at each regional, making sure that all the custom stuff they supply (field elements like radios mainly) work smoothly. I know this is the case for FRC and I thought it was the case for FTC as well. If FIRST wanted that kind of support, they'd have to enter into some sort of contract with IFI, and apparently that's not in the cards.

So my impression is that without an official FIRST-IFI contract you could certainly have a competition with IFI things, but it wouldn't be as well supported. If something like the field breaks, nobody knows how to fix it (because nobody there would be paid to know such things, it all either volunteers or FIRST management).

While it must be possible, I wouldn't count on getting a lot of mileage out of that option. In the blog pictures and videos, the new parts don't look like they are going to mate up very well with the Vex parts.

Speculation since I haven't seen close-ups of the new sensor connection apparatus: but old sensors may be usable if they can take the higher voltage the new kit runs at and the new kit has similar connectors. Two big ifs, but old sensor usage hasn't been ruled out yet.