FRC Blog - Get Ready to Make FIRST Choices

[Foster]

Originally Posted by zcohen

1) Since when was this free? I spend $5000 to get this stuff. The kickoff kits used to be much larger, with many of the things we've seen in FIRST Choice in them for everyone. As teams grew though they couldn't get the supplies for everyone and they set up this system. Yeah it allows for some cool new stuff, but at the loss of quite a few items that we used to get, so I would never say its free.

Hi, you must be new here. it's a well known fact that your $5,000 donation goes directly to FIRST. All of the parts, all of the totes, all of the shipping to your kick off site is donated.

Oh, that regional you "paid for". Donations make that happen.

Time for you to search in the CD archives about FIRST financials.

Originally Posted by zcohen

2) Did Andymark ever say that they do this for nothing? Maybe they had and if thats the case kudos to them (ignoring the probably huge tax writeoff they can get for this). If not though, it doesnt make much economic sense for a company of Andymark's size to deal with FIRST Choice for free. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some sort of monetary support so that they at least get close to breaking even.

Andy Mark does amazing things to help roboteers. VEX does amazing things to help roboteers. While they meet bottom lines, the employees and owners put passion in front of profits. Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast made $32.9 million last year. If all the First FRC teams bough ALL their parts from AM, the gross would be less than half of what Brian made.

People do amazing things for stuff the have a passion for.

I salute the robotics suppliers, I think they are awesome people with bad business sense. I buy as much stuff from them as I can, just to keep them (parts, same day shipping, talk to an engineer on a call, phone answered on the weekend) around for another year.

You, on the other hand, should do some research before you post and look like an idiot.

[Jared Russell]

Every time I feel compelled to complain about the size of the kit of parts now versus in the past, I remember that the incredible growth in the quality, diversity, affordability, and availability of FRC-specific COTS items over the past decade (and general loosening of allowed COTS parts rules) means we are getting a MUCH better deal now than at any other point in FRC history.

Think about it:

15 years ago, the registration fee (for a single regional, where you were probably getting 7-10 matches) was still $5000. Adjusted for inflation, that's $6900 today. In 2005, it was raised to $6000, or $7300 today. In the past, you got a slightly larger kit (although no kitbot until...2005?), but there was no AndyMark or VexPro. There were heavy restrictions on what you could use outside of the kit.

Today we pay ~$2000 less for the same registration (which is also going to tend to be for a closer event with more matches than in the past) and have FIRST Choice. Yes, you might not end up with your preferred parts. Yes, you haul less stuff home from kickoff. But compared to the past, a $2000 voucher for the 2015 version of AndyMark + Vex is BY FAR the best deal we've EVER gotten.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

Every time I feel compelled to complain about the size of the kit of parts now versus in the past, I remember that the incredible growth in the quality, diversity, affordability, and availability of FRC-specific COTS items over the past decade (and general loosening of allowed COTS parts rules) means we are getting a MUCH better deal now than at any other point in FRC history.

Think about it:

15 years ago, the registration fee (for a single regional, where you were probably getting 7-10 matches) was still $5000. Adjusted for inflation, that's $6900 today. In 2005, it was raised to $6000, or $7300 today. In the past, you got a slightly larger kit (although no kitbot until...2005?), but there was no AndyMark or VexPro. There were heavy restrictions on what you could use outside of the kit.

Today we pay ~$2000 less for the same registration (which is also going to tend to be for a closer event with more matches than in the past) and have FIRST Choice. Yes, you might not end up with your preferred parts. Yes, you haul less stuff home from kickoff. But compared to the past, a $2000 voucher for the 2015 version of AndyMark + Vex is BY FAR the best deal we've EVER gotten.

Absolutely agreed on all points. All factors considered (vouchers, FC, etc), it's a great value. Back in the day, we never had the kind of product donation vouchers we do now. Bimba was about it.

As for the kitbot, that came about in 2003. Anyone remember those right angle helical gears, plastic gearbox pieces, and gigantic 2x4 aluminum rectangular tubes? I think it even included some Skyway 9x2 wheels. Ah, Skyway wheels, that takes me back. As much of a failure as that system was along with the terrible Bosch drill gearboxes, the Bosch drill motors were amazingly powerful for their size, and I wouldn't mind something like that returning (so long as they didn't have the fragile plastic brush-holder assembly). 2005 was the first year of the "modern"-era kitbot with the metric gearbox designed by Paul Copioli, and then I think in 06 it went to an AndyMark Toughbox, and at some point it changed to a CIM-ple Box.

[bigbeezy]

I really like FIRSTChoice. They've done a great job with it (continuing to make improvements) and have cut down on team's stockpiling useless (to them) items. We used to get so many things that my teams would never touch and would just sit on a shelf taking up space, and eventually they'd get thrown away. I'm glad that now I don't have to deal with that (mostly, please no more throttle motors ) and teams that do want those items have the opportunity.

[pribusin]

A huge thank you to AndyMark and their staff for providing this very much free service to the teams. Without your efforts and the generosity of the donors, these FirstChoice parts may not be available to us at all and we would have to spend team funds to purchase similar items.

THANK YOU

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by orangemoore

Opt out was 10/1 to 10/16. It got past us too.

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...System-Opt-Out

It got past us as well... Surprised so many people missed it.

[rcoren22]

So now that USFIRST has changed to USInspires, it seems that the back end / TIMS has changed as well.
I just logged in to check on the password for FIRSTChoice Credits and the new dashboard does not have any team information for me.

Am I missing something, or do other people have this situation?

[Mark McLeod]

The old TIMS link is still active.
https://my.usfirst.org/frc/tims/site.lasso

[rcoren22]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

The old TIMS link is still active.
https://my.usfirst.org/frc/tims/site.lasso

Thanks Mark!

Exactly what I needed.

[ghesla]

FC is open!

http://firstchoicebyandymark.com/everything/

[seg9585]

Is anyone else having trouble logging in? I get a "Bad Request HTTP Error 400" when I attempt to login. I'm just trying to figure out how many credits we get (I can still "window-shop" before logging in to submit the list)

[Bruceb]

ok I am missing something
How many points do we get?

[mastachyra]

600 points. This is better than Christmas!

[Bruceb]

thanks Ya I found it in the bar at the top of FC along with the login button

[mman1506]

Gee, that Pocket Toner will come in real handy.