What do YOU want in the Kit of Parts?

[Marina Dimitrov]

What do you like about the Kit of Parts? What did you not like in it? Is there anything special you'd like to see in the future?

The 10 Dean's List Winners from this past season (myself included) are going to be having our chat with some of FIRST's suppliers this Friday (July 13) regarding their KOP plans for next season. If there's anything YOU would like us to pass on, we'll do our best to make the opinions we find here on Chief Delphi known.

Apologies for the somewhat late notice for this year in particular, but I figure it will be useful to have a thread going that future Dean's List Winners can take a look at as well, not to mention FIRST's suppliers themselves (if they spend time on Chief Delphi - we'll tell them about it ).

So, have at it! KOP compliments, comments, concerns, suggestions - anything is fair game.

[ebarker]

Super easy -

It will require a rule change from the past years robot rules though.

There should be a 12V 3 or 4 amp-hour sealed battery that is used to ONLY power the radio bridge.

[Billfred]

This one's been on my list for a while: improved window motor hubs. I've seen them in just about every FRC kit, going back to 2004. In the near-decade since, FRC has seen the kit landscape change greatly...and standardize on all the mounting interfaces that these aren't. Very few shafts on modern FRC robots are bigger than 1/2", yet we always have to throw some 5/8" keyed shaft on our McMaster-Carr order if we want to use them. The #10 1.875" bolt circle is the de facto standard for sprocket mounts, yet the hub is still taking 1/4" bolts in a square.

I appreciate a good engineering challenge, but these workarounds are more or less givens. I'd love to see them updated for what's out there to hook to it.

[Mk.32]

Agreed with the above, great idea with the radio battery.
More victors and electronics in general.
More vouchers so we can pick and choose what we want for example we haven't touched the igus bag in the past 2 years.

[jp1247]

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but this year in the kit of parts we got at least 10 of the small fans used on victors. I realize that some teams do use fans to cool CIM motors and various other components, but i feel these fans are just so small they are pretty useless. We (team 1247) have a pile of fans, ranging from the older style metal chassis ones, 120mm fans, and a box load of these tiny fans.

Point: Less of the small fans, more of the larger, more useful(?) fans.

My two cents.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by jp1247

I don't know if anyone else noticed, but this year in the kit of parts we got at least 10 of the small fans used on victors. I realize that some teams do use fans to cool CIM motors and various other components, but i feel these fans are just so small they are pretty useless. We (team 1247) have a pile of fans, ranging from the older style metal chassis ones, 120mm fans, and a box load of these tiny fans.

Point: Less of the small fans, more of the larger, more useful(?) fans.

My two cents.

Or just change it to rules similar to the servo rules; Allow any PC fan within X size range or airflow (spec'd in cfm, most are) as long as it is used purely for cooling and no mechanical attachment is made to the rotary output.

[nahstobor]

The same amount of motors as this years kit. It made a world of difference.

[Michael Hill]

Well, I'll say what I WOULDN'T like in the KoP.

Software.

Make all software downloadable via a secure site.

OK, so maybe include a copy in the KoP, but make all software available online. It's really frustrating when your team loses a piece of software and has to get a copy from a local team.

[daniel_dsouza]

A microcontroller would be nice:

Arduinos are great for testing sensors,
Beaglebones can be used for vision,
Pandaboards/micro-atx can be used for the Kinect.

It's not a crime to keep dreaming.

[Dominator1619]

More of a rule change than anything, but allowing for 1 or 2 more cim motors would be a nice thing to see since most teams use up all 4 in their drivetrain. The cim-sim and cim-u-lator are nice but why go through the extra hassle with dealing with those when you could just as easily use a cim. Possibly open up the motor variety as well. Would also put in a vote for more victors in the kit (especially for veteran teams like ours) or even a new motor controller option (we avoid using jag's at all costs). Possibly a new robot controller with a smaller footprint than the cRio, not to mention a less finnacy rc. Not asking for a return of the ifi controllers (even though I personally wouldn't mind that), but a newer/more reliable controller. That's just a few off the top of my head

[Chickenonastick]

The option to choose Victors or Jaguars. Also better quality PWM cables, possibly with different lengths (12", 24", 36")

[R.C.]

Originally Posted by Chickenonastick

Possibly with different lengths (12", 24", 36")

Why not make your own Its fairly cheap and a lot better than buying them.

-RC

[Chickenonastick]

Originally Posted by R.C.

Why not make your own Its fairly cheap and a lot better than buying them.

-RC

We recently purchased all the necessary materials to do so at Hansen Hobbies! Still learning (poor terminals)!

[Lil' Lavery]

Globe Motors

[gracie.]

More Jags? We ended up magic smoking a lot this year, for various reasons, but we needed 11 motor controllers on the robot... We always like using jags more than victors, but only had 6 workable jags and 5 FIRST-legal victors (a couple were old versions that are now illegal). Just more motor controllers, even for the vet teams like us...

Also, more PWM cables would be nice. We bought some supplies to make our own, but they weren't quite right, and weren't as reliable as the pre-crimped ones... Maybe even if you just gave us the right materials to make custom-lengthed PWMs it would be good! Male/female pins, housing, wire- I know lots of teams that just end up buying these anyways to get the right length. I still owe some really nice kid from grapes of wrath a pwm cable.

It's cool that we got a ribbon cable with connectors on either end (for connecting the sidecar and cRIO), but it'd be even better if we got one more like this - the screws are more secure, and more convenient than putting in your own. I know I'm getting a tad specific here...

Oh yeah! And maybe another battery charger for the vets, and more FIRST stickers. I would always like more wire, connectors, and switches, but this is all kind of wishful thinking I do like getting this stuff not through FIRST choice though. It makes things a lot easier, and I think they tend to be needed by every team.