FIRST Choice is Profoundly Flawed

[Patrick Flynn]

Originally Posted by PiltdownMan

Unfortunately, much of what is moved to FC is exactly the stuff I would want year in and year out.

I think your missing something about FC, all the items are donated free of charge to FIRST they don't chose to "move" these items here they place the donated items here. And only the quantities that are donated. In the past if a company was only able to donate 100 of an item FIRST wouldn't be able to pass it on to teams because they couldn't donate enough for even every rookie team to get one.

I agree there are flaws but I'd rather have the option for some free stuff even if it seems worthless, you never know when you'll need that left handed screw driver, than the other option of FIRST turning it away.
Bottom line this stuff is donated for free. I'll take whatever I can get.

[zzzag]

Put in my two cents or avoid beating the dead horse... putting in my two cents wins.

Originally Posted by Doug G

I don't think it is that flawed.. What is flawed is many folks understanding of what FIRST Choice really is... I so much enjoy a kickoff without the crate of stuff we won't use. I know this is an issue for more veteran teams, but I still have buckets of old drill motors (and cases), FP transmissions, etc... I am glad that I don't receive this anymore and that stuff like it end up on FC for another team to use.

I did appreciate the FC items we picked up this year... the new right angle drill, multimeter, extra C-Rio, compressor, etc... I thought it worked pretty well. Anyone want to exchange 14 plastic FP transmissions for ... well... anything?

First off, maybe I missed the posts about it, but the first I heard that our pneumatic components would have to come from FC was kickoff. Had I known back in December, we might have ordered differently.

Second, as a student team member who has witnessed the growth of FC, I think this year's use of the system is against the spirit of FIRST. Until this year, FC struck me as a nice way to add a few minor parts/tools (the 2011 system was easy to understand and functional). But this year, it became a race to see who could win big and who would end up with the leftover couplings. The teams who won big see no problem with the system that's given them 9 Talons (each of Clarkson's teams) or 2 Classmates or a new cRIO or compressor (or some combination of the lot). And indeed, even if I got one of those items out of FC, I wouldn't be so disillusioned by the system.

FIRST is supposed to be for the student team members. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. How many threads have we seen complaining about robots that were clearly built by the mentors? The students should be the ones designing, building, and testing a robot (IMHO), and this includes selecting parts to go into a robot/team. And yet here we have a system that forces the mentors to do the selection and ordering of parts in a crazy race-for-the-computer during the day while many of them are working (for the first round, at least). By the time our school day ended and we were able to gather the team's student leadership to complete the order with our mentor, a mere three hours after FC opened, all of the parts we desired most were gone - compressor, battery, cRIO, classmate, even the multimeter (if I remember correctly). We ended up with a decent haul including a few window motors, some tools we've put to good use this build season, and a battery mount we won't use in this year's design, but the fact remains that we're still using a compressor, cRIO, and Classmate that have been with the team at least as long as I have (pretty sure the first year of the Classmate was my first year also) and running on three working batteries.
It's not that we can't work around this (our cRIO still works fine, even after a few coatings of sawdust from our old digs, our programmer brings his laptop for us to work off, and we could in theory order more batteries), it would just be better to know that these items were going to the teams that needed them the most or at least in a more even distribution.

And for the second cycle of FIRST Choice, the entirety of my team's leadership was on a bus headed home from kickoff. Even less useful stuff was available by the time we were able to get to a computer, which led to us ordering useless items to use up our credits as we'd be paying for the shipping anyway.

I'm in favor of the draft system, and I know a few programmers who might be up for writing it. There needs to be some way to bring more balance to FIRST Choice.

[Nirvash]

I would agree that there are may things that I would prefer to see in the KOP, at least for rookies. There is a noticeable lack of pneumatics in the rookie KOP, which if your team didn't realize you need early in the season, you have to buy everything to get that subsystem working yourself.

[Anupam Goli]

Is FIRST Choice perfect? No. Is FIRST Choice flawed? potentially. What are we accomplishing by sitting here arguing over it? I'm sure AndyMark and FIRST would LOVE to hear feedback on the system, specifically suggestions on how to improve it! We can have constructive discussion here, but let's not turn this into a thread bashing the neat concept that is FIRST Choice.

[cmrnpizzo14]

Originally Posted by zzzag

FIRST is supposed to be for the student team members. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. How many threads have we seen complaining about robots that were clearly built by the mentors? The students should be the ones designing, building, and testing a robot (IMHO), and this includes selecting parts to go into a robot/team. And yet here we have a system that forces the mentors to do the selection and ordering of parts in a crazy race-for-the-computer during the day while many of them are working (for the first round, at least). By the time our school day ended and we were able to gather the team's student leadership to complete the order with our mentor, a mere three hours after FC opened, all of the parts we desired most were gone - compressor, battery, cRIO, classmate, even the multimeter (if I remember correctly). We ended up with a decent haul including a few window motors, some tools we've put to good use this build season, and a battery mount we won't use in this year's design, but the fact remains that we're still using a compressor, cRIO, and Classmate that have been with the team at least as long as I have (pretty sure the first year of the Classmate was my first year also) and running on three working batteries.

I see your point and I wholeheartedly agree that the robots should be student built and student designed. After all, what is the point of FIRST if we are taking the mentors who presumably already know what they are doing and let them have free reign with everything. That being said, there really is not a way that I can think of to change the system and I believe that it should stay the way that it is, the spirit of FIRST is not winning, it is learning.

Secondly, our team has the same problems as yours but to solve it we show the FC page to all student subteam leaders before the order day. Then with their subteams they pick out items that they might want and put them in a spreadsheet. We review eachother's choices to make sure that multiple teams are not requesting the same item, and if they are we place it higher on the list. Then the finalized list is given to the head mentor who places the order basically as soon as FC opens.

It is by no means perfect, but I think that we do a good job of maximizing student involvement while not sacrificing too much from FC. I agree that the points pricing needs reconsideration and there should be a limit on the maximum quantity of items (like talons). No offense to 4124 and 229, I applaud your use of the system and how well you work together.


Please check out ANY of our team's robots, you will quickly see that they are student built. You could hear the gears of last years shooter over the CMP webcast

[JosephC]

Let's please not turn a thread about FIRST Choice into a debate about Student Built/Mentor Built robots. We already have multiple discussions about that elsewhere.

FIRST Choice is not a perfect system. The best way to improve the system would probably be to adjust the points system. We can all agree that FIRST Choice needs to be balanced, to be more "fair"; however arguing with one another about just how "fair" it is right now is not the way to fix it. Instead of arguing; how about we remember that the people behind the screens are in fact people, with feelings, trying to do what they believe is best for the program. Instead of fighting with one another; let's try to come up with an agreeable fix to the system, and send it to FIRST HQ or AndyMark.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14

I see your point and I wholeheartedly agree that the robots should be student built and student designed. After all, what is the point of FIRST if we are taking the mentors who presumably already know what they are doing and let them have free reign with everything. That being said, there really is not a way that I can think of to change the system and I believe that it should stay the way that it is, the spirit of FIRST is not winning, it is learning.

FIRST has specifically stated that robots built by mentors, or more specifically with mentor involvement, are OK. Also, FIRST is about Inspiration and Recognition. The vehicle they use is a robot competition--FIRST is NOT a robot competition.

@zzzag: I point you to the mission statement at http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/vision and ask you to show me one piece of FIRST literature, web-based or in print, that says that FIRST is all about the students.

I could go off into a rant about what I see as the real motive behind the "mentor-built robots" threads, but that would serve no purpose. Instead, I am going to suggest that a mod split off the posts and portions of posts beating the glue-that-was-a-horse for separate discussion, and return to discussion of how to make FC better.



If I was to make FC better, I'd start by seeing if I could get more of high-value items. Higher supply means more teams can get more of those items. Second, I'd see what didn't distribute well the previous year--that stuff would go down to really cheap, really quickly.

Then I'd start tackling the real problems. Price point, computer bugs, large orders, small credits. I'd actually start out by not changing the limits on quantity able to be bought, but credits available per round and number of rounds. Instead of having 100 points per round and 2 rounds, I'd make it so that only 25 new points were available each round, and have 8 rounds, of short duration (3 days to a week, 6 before build and 2 after, or something like that). But, if you didn't use all your points in a given round, they'd carry over into the next round. Between rounds, update quantities and possibly do some new items (say, if I had Talons one round, I might have remaining Talons and some 888s available in the next round). The last round is open until CMP.

I'd also look at some resemblance of points to dollars as the baseline, followed by how many teams are likely to use something for a "fudge factor" to move the cost up or down. Talons go up a credit or so, snowblower motors down a credit, game pieces go way down but with a cap based on the number of FRC teams and the number of items (ideally, each team gets the same number if they want them).

[sabruce01]

It is hard to inspire a student when they take THEIR creation and get stomped and embarrassed at a regional by a bot designed and built by mentors. It's sad to see students sitting on their bottoms in the pits while the "grown ups" work on the robot. I'm pretty sure that is not the intent of FIRST.

[PiltdownMan]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

The more important line in Taylor's response is one you seem to have conveniently ignored.



Now, I happen to agree that FC is flawed. But it's a step in the right direction from the gross waste of the past 2 decades. It needs some work. But, the fact is I have several thousand dollars worth of stuff from the last 16 KOP that will probably never be used by us. I wish it could have gone to teams that needed it rather than sit and take up storage space but the fact is cataloging and distributing it is not cost effective at this point in time for us.

Am I defending the fact that FC doesn't seem to benefit the very teams that need the resources most? No. But I will say that waiting until 2 months after a store declares open season on their stock and then complaining there is nothing left that's edible is just plain silly.



And I'm going to address the fact that money is a big factor. If you are planning on building a robot on just your KoP money grant you are doing it wrong. FIRST is not simply something we do 6 weeks out of the year. Fundraising and outreach are a year round thing. You see teams with these big corporate sponsors and lots of machining ability and we are all jealous. But you know what? They weren't just handed that. I suggest pinging Adam Heard, I know he and 973 worked their rear ends off for everything they have and it might be a good lesson in hard work paying dividends.

I see you share Taylors same affliction, Mr. Schreiber...the casual rudeness and cruelty that is the right and of every Internet denizen. Thank you for giving your reply context early.

The reason I didn't address his flip and loutish remark was because what I said was that I still had 100 points left. I saw no point in addressing a flawed set assumptions based on a careless reading. But to clarify, since explicit would seem to be required for some.

I spent the first set of points immediately and still couldn't get a lot of what we would have preferred. As for the second set, between technical issues and personal obligations I was not able to get back FC till 24 hours after the inital opening. It seems a reasonable amount time to me even now. After that 24 hours there was nothing left except what which would at best be only vaguely useful.

You state that you see FC as flawed as well but you focus not on solutions but rather on correcting me for errors based on hastily drawn conclusions and imagined character flaws. Not helpful, sir.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by PiltdownMan

I see you share Taylors same affliction, Mr. Schreiber...the casual rudeness and cruelty that is the right and of every Internet denizen. Thank you for giving your reply context early.

The reason I didn't address his flip and loutish remark was because what I said was that I still had 100 points left. I saw no point in addressing a flawed set assumptions based on a careless reading. But to clarify, since explicit would seem to be required for some.

I spent the first set of points immediately and still couldn't get a lot of what we would have preferred. As for the second set, between technical issues and personal obligations I was not able to get back FC till 24 hours after the inital opening. It seems a reasonable amount time to me even now. After that 24 hours there was nothing left except what which would at best be only vaguely useful.

You state that you see FC as flawed as well but you focus not on solutions but rather on correcting me for errors based on hastily drawn conclusions and imagined character flaws. Not helpful, sir.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh....php?p=1200883 I did focus on solutions. 2 months ago. When this system came out. Sadly due to the sheer amount of time I give to this program I have been unable to run a simulation of FIRST Choice using different algorithms for distribution. It's on my todo list though, I'll probably not get to it until after I bag my robot.

If you want to talk about FC being broken and unfair...

Did you know that if you had a team number under 1000 you couldn't log in for the first 30 minutes? At which point a good chunk of things were ALREADY gone. You'll take note that I mentor a team that happens to have 2 digits. Perhaps you weren't the only one negatively impacted by this system. But unlike you, who appears to be merely want a sounding board for your negativity, many of us spent a good chunk of time trying to figure out possible solutions for next year.

Here's a suggestion, sitting here griping about stuff and lambasting a system without offering solutions is not productive. And outright insulting people who agree with you on the majority of your comments is far more foolish than I'd expect out of someone who has been around this program for a few years. Let's take a breath and focus on solutions. Anger and insults never solved any problem.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by PiltdownMan

I see you share Taylors same affliction, Mr. Schreiber...the casual rudeness and cruelty that is the right and of every Internet denizen. Thank you for giving your reply context early.

The reason I didn't address his flip and loutish remark was because what I said was that I still had 100 points left. I saw no point in addressing a flawed set assumptions based on a careless reading. But to clarify, since explicit would seem to be required for some.

You clearly can't tell the difference with someone not sharing your opinions and someone being rude to you. Both Taylor's and Andrew's responses were reasonable and constructive. Maybe if you spent less time trying to make someone else the "bad guy," being rude in the process, and actually addressing the issue at hand as opposed to getting into petty arguments that you couldn't possibly ever win, you might receive more sympathy and ideas to the problem you posted.

[Wildcats1378]

I think it's flawed a bit. The idea is nice, but for example, replacing motor controllers with electrical tape in the KOP because the motor controllers are now avaliable in First Choice is just silly. We logged in one day late, and all the motor controllers, batterys, cRIO's etc were all gone.
First choice should really be limited in how many items a team can stock up, as well as more of an addition to the kit rather then a main part of it. it isn't fun to rush and overload servers and hope you ordered something in time...

[F22Rapture]

I think an awful lot of issues would be solved by imposing per-item quantity limits and/or fixing the credit prices. There's no reason a $200 camera and $400 laptop combined should cost less credits than 2 $30 joysticks, nor should a $5 coupling cost the same as aforementioned $200 camera.

I happen to prefer the second solution because it solves both problems in one go.

[kevin.li.rit]

Originally Posted by F22Rapture

I think an awful lot of issues would be solved by imposing per-item quantity limits and/or fixing the credit prices. There's no reason a $200 camera and $400 laptop combined should cost less credits than 2 $30 joysticks, nor should a $5 coupling cost the same as aforementioned $200 camera.

I happen to prefer the second solution because it solves both problems in one go.

Exactly, and for items with low quantities they might look to try a lottery system where everyone can have a window to put in points for it if they want that particular item.

[2544HCRC]

I want to go on the record as voicing my disappointment with FIRST Choice. I was on soon after it opened and everything we could use was gone. We were looking at Talons, a CRIO, and sensors. By the time I was able to get on (within hours) everything was gone. Nothing else was really worth the shipping to us. This is the second year that I have left ALL of the FIRST Choice points intact. I am thinking that more teams need to just leave the points instead of ordering useless stuff to burn up the points. I think if FRC sees many teams leaving all 100 points it might trigger some discussion that the system isn't working for quite a few teams.

My thought is that there should be a first round where teams get 1 or 2 of things that would be reasonably expected to be needed by all teams. After that initial round teams could have a free for all over what is left.

I agree that there were many items in the kit that were not needed. However, the pendulum seems to be swung the other way. The kit of parts was pretty bare this year. I realize that we are collectively renting many large spaces in urban areas for regionals but the cost is getting a bit much for what you get. Especially knowing that the same $5k would support almost 7 lego teams or several FTC teams. Yes I am aware that the cost has not gone up in many years. Add on to that the several thousand you know you are going to need because the kit is so lean. My understanding was that the KoP was supposed to provide a team a reasonably competitive robot. I was beaten up on this very forum for suggesting otherwise and regaled with stories of teams winning regionals on nothing more than the KoP and a good hammer. I don't think you could put a robot on the field this year out of the kit. In our case, as a team that is now in our 5th season, we needed to replace the camera (ours quite working), the classmate is about worthless, and we are on the old CRio that could use replacing. A well thought out and better FIRST Choice would go a long way toward solving some of the problems. If nothing else, maybe an auction of some type for the FIRST Choice major parts?