Proposal: A New Way to Run FIRST Choice

[BrendanB]

I think we would be better served with an introduction of lower points pre-season (we still have 24 credits we picked what we wanted) and quantity limits. One cRIO, one Classmate, four Talons, etc. We all have needs and desires for our teams but with limited quantities available, limits should be in place.

[cgmv123]

The simplest solution is to convince Cross-the-Road to give every team 8 Talons in the kit. That's not going to happen, but...

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

The simplest solution is to convince Cross-the-Road to give every team 8 Talons in the kit. That's not going to happen, but...

That takes us back to the old days when the KOP provided the same elements to everyone but as we grew a supplier providing 10,000 (4 per kit) was a large investment to make especially in this economy. Additionally, as more and more products have developed and been introduced to FRC less teams use whats in the KOP.

When I first started we only used Victors. Now we can use Victors, Jags, and now Talons. Many teams use one and one only either trading them for other parts or throwing them up on a shelf.

[Jon Stratis]

The best solution to the problem we face has to avoid the time crunch. I don't really care what the algorithm is - auction, draft, limits, whatever. But we need a sufficiently broad time window (lets say 24 hours) to let teams log in and indicate their choices, without giving preference to the teams that log in first.

[Kevin Sevcik]

The random draft proposal sounds really good, actually. It's not that complicated of an idea to explain to people, and if you really wanted, you could run a mock draft sometime in November or something to both test the system and familiarize people with how it works. Heck, you could even send reminder emails to people who haven't submitted their draft list yet.

There's a potential problem/benefit, however:
Teams that aren't fully paid up can't participate in FIRSTChoice. There's a fair number of teams already this year that missed out on this initial rush because grants haven't cleared or similar. If the draft system moves the date up, even more teams will be left out. On the other hand, the less rushed nature of the process might mean that you could push the dates back a bit to give more teams a chance to participate.

[ferret_guy]

Originally Posted by Hallry

One must remember, there are now 2,500 teams in FIRST. This would require employees of FIRST to dedicate much time towards this, instead of other possible work.

I disagree this would simply be an update the the FIRST choice system it would be a relativity easy update to implement.

[Siri]

They do something similar for FLL qualifiers already. I don't know how FIRST runs the "draft" (FLL teams only get 1 official event), but each team picks their 1st-3rd venue choices. This could be automated similarly to the proposed FIRST Choice draft, while still retaining the override procedures that FRC uses now in terms of late-registering rookies, teams having to attend a specific event for travel reasons, sponsorship, etc.

These two ideas (FIRST Choice and event selection) may actually decrease the workload for FIRST HQ after the capital investment in design--which doesn't have to be done <1mo before kickoff. It would certainly mean less "clean up" than issues like this cause. Even if the system does break, it wouldn't be such a time crunch.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Hallry

One must remember, there are now 2,500 teams in FIRST. This would require employees of FIRST to dedicate much time towards this, instead of other possible work.

Exactly.

Do you know how many people work at FIRST, on staff?
I think they MAYBE hit 100 total employees this year.
(Source: I interned in the Marketing department this summer).

That divides many ways, into each of the programs (Jr.FLL, FLL, FTC, FRC), and then things like HR, IT, Volunteer Resources, Marketing, Finance, and the list goes on...

There's not a whole lot of people who actually WORK FOR FRC.
When people get fired up about change not happening fast enough (this is not to say that change doesn't need to happen, I absolutely agree- FRC needs some fixes...), I think this point needs to be brought up:

Please remember that the FRC staff is smaller than the average FRC team.
There are 2500 of you, and one of them.

When you (the royal 'you', not anyone in this thread specifically- I'm talking really generally, here) say that that 'FRC ISN'T DOING THIS RIGHT', you're not calling out some big corporate structure. You're literally calling out a group of ...15, 20 people, maybe? Who all work REALLY hard at their jobs. Implementing any big change requires a lot of work from those 15.

I'm all for improving things and making changes, but you've got to remember you're dealing with humans on the other end of this. Human beings who work really hard on their jobs and quite frankly could use a lot more 'thank you's' than they currently get. Piling more work onto their plates isn't a great solution, unless FRC were to suddenly hire 15 more people. (I've always said FIRST could use a cloning machine - so many great and ambitious people, so little time.)

That said, I like the draft system idea - and I definitely think the current method needs some change! It would just have to be developed and implemented in a way that doesn't bog down FRC staff with more stuff to do in such a crazy time of year. (Also keep in mind, just because it's a computer system doesn't mean it can just be ignored - someone has to keep an eye on that too- computers aren't perfect.)

[BigJ]

(Also when you say something like "that is an easy software fix/feature".... it usually isn't in practice )

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by BigJ

(Also when you say something like "that is an easy software fix/feature".... it usually isn't in practice )

As a software engineer I understand what you are saying. But these are pretty well known solutions. Truth be told, I probably have code I could repurpose fairly simply sitting in one of my hard drives. From there it'd be more a function of writing test cases and probably a decent UI... I'd be willing to say it's about 80 hours of work for someone familiar with the tools. Probably a little more if you want to make it enjoyable to use.

[JohnChristensen]

Libby,

I know that FIRST HQ is not staffed like a large corporation. I don't know how much time was spent yesterday and overnight to fix FIRST Choice and get things running again. I am guessing most of the work was handled by the AndyMark team, but I am sure that things were upset for a while in NH as well... They had to issue two official responses. That limits time to do things which need attention.

My goal with this proposal was to do two things: (1) To propose a solution that would take less human capital to run (teams time and schedules as well as AndyMark/FIRSTs) and (2) propose a solution that would limit the public exposure to things going wrong. With a draft, the orders can be checked and then released publicly.

Finding a complicated solution to a problem is easy, solving the same problem with a simple solution takes a great deal more thought. This change (if FIRST is even interested) would have to be an offseason change. I would personally volunteer to help out with the project (I am serious). I am not trying to criticize anyone from the teams, to AndyMark, or even FIRST. I am only trying to improve the system for everyone in a way that does not overly burden anyone.

John

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by JohnChristensen

Libby,

I know that FIRST HQ is not staffed like a large corporation. I don't know how much time was spent yesterday and overnight to fix FIRST Choice and get things running again. I am guessing most of the work was handled by the AndyMark team, but I am sure that things were upset for a while in NH as well... They had to issue two official responses. That limits time to do things which need attention.

My goal with this proposal was to do two things: (1) To propose a solution that would take less human capital to run (teams time and schedules as well as AndyMark/FIRSTs) and (2) propose a solution that would limit the public exposure to things going wrong. With a draft, the orders can be checked and then released publicly.

Finding a complicated solution to a problem is easy, solving the same problem with a simple solution takes a great deal more thought. This change (if FIRST is even interested) would have to be an offseason change. I would personally volunteer to help out with the project (I am serious). I am not trying to criticize anyone from the teams, to AndyMark, or even FIRST. I am only trying to improve the system for everyone in a way that does not overly burden anyone.

John

John,

The original post I made (which has now been edited quite a few times) certainly sounded a little more "stop picking on them, they try really hard." That's not what I meant, AT ALL. Hopefully, I've changed it to be closer to my point.

Take Two: "Productive changes are awesome, but FRC isn't as big as some of us think - it takes some time."

I love the idea of changing things and improving, and I actually really like the idea proposed - it seems like you've got something here. Some of the later posts in the thread (as well as PM's I've been sent on this subject, as well as others) was "FIRST could totally do this, why haven't they changed it yet, it's so easy."... That's what sparked my first reaction. I've learned over my years on CD to write a post, walk away, and read it later before posting - but I guess I didn't wait long enough. Thank goodness for the edit tool.

[Nemo]

I like the draft option, and I bet the FIRST community would be able to do a good chunk of the technical work. If creating a new system isn't a good option, it's possible to quickly improve the existing system in the following ways:

1) Point values that more accurately reflect the value and utility of items (this would have solved a lot of the problem by itself... example, classmate computer costs 100 points - automatically it becomes more of a decision and less of a race)
2) Fewer points available in the early round of shopping
3) Passwords given out early for people to test; add credits to accounts to "go live"

That still doesn't eliminate the time crunch element of this process, though, and I agree that it would be highly desirable to fix that problem.

I'll say this again: I really like the concept of more choice in the Kit of Parts, so I hope this trend can continue in the future despite the problems we've experienced this year.

[Brandon Holley]

The people at HQ and AM work very hard, I don't think anyone in this thread or involved in FIRST is questioning their efforts. However, I do think teams who have been deeply affected by this (my team included) have a right to look at the system and ask how it can be improved (many of us ARE engineers, or think like engineers....).

I think the draft system is an obvious leap to take, and is probably closer to the "ideal solution" than the current system. I do think there is an intermediate step that could be taken as well.

Market-driven ranking of the products is a good start. Poll all of the teams in October and ask them to rank what their top 5 selections would be given the catalog of FIRST choice options. Based on quantity of votes and quantity of product available, rank the choices more logically.

The Talon would obviously be high up on the ranking. Although there were 400 available, no hard limit allowed teams to buy them up ~10 at a time. By implementing a hard limit for this item, or a more cost prohibitive limit (25 credits?) the # of Talons available to each team would have been reduced. This allows more teams to get their hands on useful equipment. Maybe teams won't end up with enough speed controllers to outfit their entire robot, but now more teams will be able to outfit 30-50% of their robot with speed controllers.

I think there are many options available, and my hope is that we can provide constructive feedback without it being misconstrued as "attacking" staff members. We're all very passionate about this program, and we all invest a lot of time and money into it.

I have a duty to my team and our sponsors to ensure we are being put in a fair position with regards to how our finances are spent. Luckily- we are a team who can absorb the cost of a misfired FIRST Choice without it devastating our team, however I know for a fact many teams are not in this fortunate position.

-Brando

[tsaksa]

The issue with FIRST Choice seems to be one of too many teams chasing too few resources. Perhaps the solution is not a draft or lottery, but one of scaling back the intent of the program. As was already mentioned, it is getting harder and harder to solicit donations that can benefit teams equally when there are now so many teams. I hope I do not offend anyone out there, but do I do not know if all the teams really need FIRST Choice, while for others it may mean the difference between being able to compete.

If we really want to have FIRST grow to the point where it can reach students in every school can we expect FIRST Choice to continually serve all of those teams equally? Right now there is an extreme discrepancy in the funding available to teams in smaller towns, rural areas, or economically depressed areas. And yet there are a lot of teams out there with budgets that should allow then to build a robot even without FIRST Choice. Allowing early access to resources based on need might be a way to more equitably distribute scarce resources.

I know that FIRST Choice was intended to be a part of the KOP, and not a funding program. But I for one would rather see early access to ordering on FIRST Choice offered to rookie teams and teams demonstrated financial need rather than a random drawing if that is being considered. The other teams could be offered access to what is left a few days later. Just trying to consider a new way to look at the issue. I hope no one takes offence.