FIRST Choice is Profoundly Flawed

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

. 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.

To be fair, there's no practical difference between ordering two months in and ordering at 12:30pm on opening day. The most useful items, like batteries, Crios, classmates, speed controllers etc. are all gone by then. You're left with a lot of items that aren't very useful and just as expensive in terms of points.

FIRST choice serves teams who have good network luck and someone with nothing else to do in the middle of the day. It's not even really First come/first serve, it's first to not experience a network error/first serve.

There are a lot of things FIRST could do to change the situation. I hope they do any one of them, because it'd be an improvement.

[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.

Again, you should go look at what I actually said and examine your assumptions.

[LeelandS]

I think some argument is starting to be bred out of how things are being said, something that tends to derail good discussion and exchange of ideas. The topic of the thread is to discuss FIRST Choice and the flaws it currently holds. Let's try not to tear apart each other's arguments, okay? *steps off soap box*

FIRST Choice may or may not be flawed depending on how you view it as a whole. I, personally, view FC as a bonus. Not something teams are entitled to, or something that should be distributed to teams in need, but a bonus to stack on the work teams have already done for fundraising. Yes, it does provide a lovely benefit to low-resource teams so they can focus their funding on other essential parts. But at the end of the day, low resource teams existed before FIRST Choice, and, if FIRST Choice ever ends, they will exist after. It's like... Um. It's not really frosting on the cake. But it's like, getting a piece of cake with frosting, and FIRST Choice is the sprinkles. So, because I view FIRST Choice like this, I don't find the system to be flawed at all. It's first come, first serve. It doesn't really get much more fair than that, to me. The items are all donated items. And FIRST is making use of those donated items by giving teams a chance to grab them.

I definitely see how some focus on the benefit it provides to rookie and other lower resource teams. I'm not really smart enough to come up with a system that treats all the teams fairly, so I can't provide too much discussion for how we resolve this. But it does seem a bit unfair that these donated items are going to teams who are less in need. But in the end, every team has the same chance to get them. It's not like veterans got a special password to access FC early. I'm not much of a shopper, so the concept of people camping, waiting for FC to open is a little over my head. But it ended up being a race, and people got what they could. There's not much else I can say. If a team missed out because they couldn't get there in time, I can't say I find it unfair. But I would if I was focused on FC being more important as a boost for low resource teams.

I can only find two things FIRST can do to make FC more fair. They either raise their stock, or lower the points each team is given. And since FIRST can't control the stock of donated items, adjusting prices and lowering the amount of points given seems to be the most logical course of action, at least in my eyes.

[sabruce01]

In December, the useful items were gone within hours. By Jan 5th, most items were gone. It's not like we are trying to order now. I agree on the FP transmissions and all the other items not used in the past, but lets be honest.....the KOP is pretty sad. With the FC the way it is, many teams simply have to pony up extra money or do without. OR take off work, sit at a computer at a certain time in December and take a guess at what they will be needing for the next season. One other thing folks, many speak of all the items being "donated", and they are, but they were also donated back when we received two crates and a couple of boxes in the KOP. It's not like they started the FC because items were being donated. I spoke with AndyMark about FC and got the same answer...."only so much was donated and when it's gone, it's gone". My problem is when teams post pictures of obtaining 12 or 15 of a certain item that is now "gone" and my team needs only one.....we have to buy it. Did they really need 15 of that specific item.....probably not.......

[lemiant]

Originally Posted by sabruce01

My problem is when teams post pictures of obtaining 12 or 15 of a certain item that is now "gone" and my team needs only one.....we have to buy it. Did they really need 15 of that specific item.....probably not.......

I cannot, personally, remember ever seeing a picture like this. Care to provide a link?

[sabruce01]

Originally Posted by lemiant

I cannot, personally, remember ever seeing a picture like this. Care to provide a link?

Gladly! BTW....my mistake...they received 18 TALONS!

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...28#post1211528

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by sabruce01

Gladly! BTW....my mistake...they received 18 TALONS!

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...28#post1211528

That is showing two teams worth of components.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by sabruce01

Gladly! BTW....my mistake...they received 18 TALONS!

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...28#post1211528

If you will note from the linked posts in that thread, those Talons are shared between 2 teams. 9 speed controllers to a team is actually quite reasonable in any given year: 4 on drive, 3 for other motors that require variable speed, and 2 spares/extra motors because the Talons are at this point beta tested but haven't exactly gone through a full FRC season with lots of them out there. This year, that might even translate to 6 on drive, 2 for climbing, 1 spare/shooter.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by PiltdownMan

FIRST Choice has served and continues to serves my team very poorly. We have never gotten anything particularly useful from the FIRST Choice program (FC). For the last 4 weeks there certainly has been little available that we can use on the designs for the current season. That is because the things that we could use to actually compete with are provided in such small numbers that we can’t get them. So now we have 100 FC points that are essentially worthless.
The bottom line is we now need to stop worrying about what we need for a given year’s competition and choose the most valuable/scarcest items. We have to indulge in bad engineering, bad sportsmanship, bad logistics just to compete. Not gracious/not professional.
FIRST needs to design a system that makes more sense or redesign the FC system. They could set up a rotation system wherein the choice of the high value targets is limited over time or some other such concept.

(I personally would be less offended if the program was killed and we just had to buy those items. At least it would be an honest system. I would be happy to contribute ideas or time to solving it. It has already occupied too much of my time.)

There is some merit to what is being said in this post. I'm trying to understand it for what its worth minus your frustrations. We've had some of the same issues as well.

It reminds me of Black Friday when retailers spend millions on ads to advertise doorbuster sales, but essentially impossible to get without camping out for days prior.

On the other hand, the system is a big improvement compared to before, where we had items we never used year and year that went to waste.

[kevin.li.rit]

My biggest complaint with First Choice is with the inventory and point pricing system. The points seem way out of proportion to the value of the part (e.x. Right angle drill is less points than a roll of pneumatic tubing.) It seems to encourage people taking the higher value items even if there is not a strong need for it. Our team could have definitely used some of the out of stock items like a new classmate. Unfortunately we did not get on FC until the 1st week (which is only our own fault.)

I really hope they redo the point pricing for next year.

Other than that I'm okay with the concept of FC. (We have enough brass fittings...)

[sabruce01]

Couldn't agree more. First choice isn't quite working out as they had planned. In reality, the KOP has been cut down to near nothing and the registration fee remains the same.

[Nirvash]

There is a pretty recent thread on mentors and involment, that would be a great place to discuss mentors.

Lets keep this on First Choice.