Community Support for Teams that are in the Vex Ecosystem

FIRST General Forum
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Howdy Y’all,

With all the difficult things going on around IFI and the VexPro lines of products, I think we need to begin considering the needs of teams (especially school-based) who are locked into buying what they need from IFI. Not every team has the freedom to buy from any vendor, or to stop using a line of products that they have grown to rely on. What would y’all think about forming a co-op for sharing products so that teams can request items they need and have them donated locally or shipped? And teams with excess Vex products that they don’t plan on using can offer them publicly?

I don’t know what the forum for this would look like, aside from sharing in this thread and perhaps on regional Discords. In any case, there’s no shame in using Vex parts and we want to support each other through what will be a difficult season. Let me know here if you have any ideas or paths for doing this that I haven’t thought of.

Mr.N

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Maybe you could create a discord server that is intended just for this use.

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I’ve been giving this a lot of thought too. Thank you for making this post.

The way I see it, if the goal is to hit IFI where it hurts (to light a fire under them), there are two closely-related objectives we need to put resources towards. The first one already has quite a bit of energy behind it: de-VEXing and making it as easy for teams to de-VEX as possible. The second objective we need to tackle is making sure that teams who aren’t as connected to the FRC Cinematic Universe™ are made aware of the situation so that they can make an informed decision about continuing to do business with IFI.

I’ve been prototyping a website designed to help with the first problem, and hopefully the second as well. I’m not ready to share screenshots or anything yet, but the basic idea is to facilitate part trades and sales to help circulate and deplete the VEX products from the FRC ecosystem without requiring teams to purchase anything through VEX. Depending on the scale and resources I manage to scrounge together, it would be somewhere between a very specialized version of Craigslist (doesn’t handle shipping or payment, just puts sender and recipient in contact) and an extremely watered-down version of Ebay (handles shipping and payment), but more than likely will lean towards the Craigslist style for simplicity sake. I have a tendency to let scope creep destroy my projects, but I’m trying really hard to keep this one under control.

Participating teams and organizations would be able to list the excess VEX inventory that they have, which will then be kept in a database. When teams are in need of some VEX-specific component, they would be able to create a request for that part. If a participating team in some geographic range has that part in stock, said team will be notified that a nearby team is in need of that part. If no nearby team has that part in stock and the requester opts in, it would notify the nearest team that has that part in stock and has opted into the shipping system that their part is needed. Additionally, teams and individuals could donate funds to cover shipping costs, if there is enough support.

Now, before you reply, I am aware of the fact that no team on the planet wants to run a non-profit eCommerce operation in the middle of a build season, boxing and shipping their own inventory. To be honest, I don’t have a good answer to this, but I struggle to see how we’re going to get through this IFI meltdown without having to do some logistics work on our end. This is just a slightly more organized and centralized way to help more teams participate. Undoubtedly, a benefit of a more eBay-style approach is that it removes a lot of complexity from the team side while adding complexity to the development side.

Am I underselling the complexity of this undertaking? Wildly. Is this a flawed idea? Probably, but it’s the best I’ve got right now. Am I missing some massive, obvious problem that prevents this from working? Maybe, and if you see it, please point it out. I’m also willing to donate my own hosting resources for this purpose, but it may not be enough. I just fear that a Discord channel or a CD thread may not be able to adequately handle the logistical complexity and scale of trading that may need to take place this coming season.

I have absolutely no desire to profit from this. My goal is only to help the FRC community to stand up to a vile company that has shown us that it doesn’t stand for the things we stand for. Feedback is appreciated.

-Max

Snipe edit: minor grammar mistake

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By the way, Google cloud offers a pretty nice free tier VM.

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I had thought about that also, as well as Amazon’s free t2.micro and t3.micro EC2 instances, but if we’re creating a site for the expressed purpose of boycotting a vile company, I’d like to keep the hosting stack clear of any other companies with massively reported sexism problems (or human rights violations) on record, which is a distressingly difficult task.

Maybe I’m setting the bar too high. What a horrible thought.

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I would be non-trivially concerned about legal action, were I to spearhead a project like this.

Being right is no defense against legal fees.

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Another interesting wrench in these particular gears is that if VEX (or VEXPro) folds as a viable business, then it’s no longer a VENDOR, and that would make all that stock that so many of us have (Falcons and BAGs and VPs and structure, and so forth) no longer legal to use on an FRC robot. Rather than just not being able to get spare parts, you wouldn’t even be able to use the parts you have.

One would hope that, in this situation, FIRST HQ would grandfather in VEX/VEXPro components for a number of years to allow time for a transition to other products…but I can’t say what FIRST HQ would or wouldn’t do in that regard.

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VPs and the hardware components of gears etc are not regulated by HQ. Only thing HQ has voice on is the electronics and motors allowed.

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COTS products have to be available from a VENDOR in order to be legal on robots, yeah? Or am I missing something here?

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This is an interesting thought. The first page of the robot rules clearly says that COTS parts are products sold by VENDORS, and the second page (less clearly) says that a VENDOR is an active company. The blue box on the second page provides a pretty clear intent that I think we could extend to this hypothetical situation to allow those parts, though.

The whole section and the robot rules in general seem to assume that every part starts as COTS. Teams then modify the parts, either for storage (eg. cutting a 20’ length of tubing down to smaller lengths) or to create a FABRICATED ITEM, something that has been modified to go on the robot. There’s really nothing in the rules to handle a part that doesn’t start out as COTS.

Baring a clear statement in the rules/Q&A that would make them illegal, I wouldn’t rule against any “legacy” parts from a company that operated for years and has since shut down.

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Yep. The IFI response contained “tortious interference.”

We appreciate community support and understanding. But well wishes are good enough for now. (Or cash sponsorships would be nice.)

David

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I’d hate to find out those parts aren’t allowed during inspection, though. I hope FIRST HQ is prepared for this possibility and is ready to do the right thing (that is, grandfather these parts for a while).

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I think this clause would allow COTS parts in the event that vex dies. “Items that are no longer commercially available but are functionally equivalent to the original condition as delivered from the VENDOR are considered COTS and may be used.” By my interpretation, all vex stuff (as long as it’s in its original condition) would be fine as it was delivered from a vendor (VEX).

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I think I missed the existence of that clause!

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I’ve also asked (maybe ineloquently, we’ll see how any final verbiage turns out) for this to be explicitly expanded to the R302E modified COTS clause and any other expanded allowances, hopefully including potential secondary market donation/resale. We’ll see if anyone notices the request, though it works for a lot of things as-is already.

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I get what you’re trying to do here and how this relates to the events of the last couple of weeks, but I wonder if the community would be better served by something that isn’t VEX-specific. Imagine a general FRC-specific Craigslist that supports the selling, gifting, or trading of any legal FRC robot part, new or used. It could automatically calculate the distance between your team and another to facilitate local delivery/pick-up. This would meet the immediate needs you’re trying to serve without being targeted at interfering with a specific company’s business. It could also be used for swapping team merch. Maybe it could have an event mode that can be used at competitions.

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it.

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This would be amazing. Giving teams a resource to both spend less and waste less is the pinnacle of coopertition and GP, imo.

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3184 started basically the site you’re suggesting, the FRC Part Exchange, back in the 2017 offseason. I know my alum team got some use out of it, but I’m unsure where the project eventually went. @dydx would have some good advice for anyone trying to start something like this.

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We are adding a co-op exchange to the Colorado FRC Discord it looks like, and several teams are already planning how to share the parts we have with each other. If there was a Craigslist-type page as described above that would be so cool.

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I know this has been tried before and it’d be amazing to try again if we can learn those lessons. FIRST has a like Mentor Help Exchange portal or something already, right? (I’m sure I’m on it…the fact that I don’t recall much about it and am posting on CD doesn’t bode well for this suggestion buuuut…) The lowest user barrier might be to expand that platform for non-labor resources too. Not that FIRST would support the exchange of funds or anything, but just the connections. Irrc there are buttons for like “we’re looking for MechE help” and “we have EE help to offer”. Adding “we’re looking for spare SparkMaxes” and “we have spare PDBs” would be amazing integration if it wouldn’t bother suppliers. I realize that’s a big if, but I’ve heard of suppliers in other markets actually supporting things like this because it helps lower the barrier to entry and sustained participation in their ecosystems and increase exposure, but that might not apply in this market.

Someone tell me this is a stupid idea or my silly self will end up emailing Fiona for her to tell me it is. (Which FRCTeamAdvocate would never do, but I have like a 20% hit rate on these and I’m trying to keep it in double digits)

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