What about countries that don’t have FTC (Israel)?
How r we suppose to do the minibot stuff?
There is a list of the usable parts for your minibot in the manual. You could just order the required parts. It has nothing to do with the availability of an FTC competition in your area.
An FTC parts kit is one of the FIRST Choice selections your team can make.
Kit Contents
- 2 - Motor Mount, W739089
- 1 - Motor Shaft Hub, W739079
- 2 - DC Motor, W739083
- 1 - Gear Hub Spacers, W739090
- 1 - Tetrix Resource Kit, W731900
- 1 - Battery Charger, W739059
- 1 - 12V NiMH Rechargable Batter, W739057
*]1 - Power Switch, W739129
What about states that don’t have FTC? 
I think Dave was right when he commented that FRC teams that have supported FTC teams will enjoy an advantage in LogoMotion. And I think that is a good thing, for the whole FIRST community.
Meanwhile, those of us in areas that don’t do FTC, like Israel and Michigan, will work to catch up.
FIRST Choice has FTC kits
I disagree. This rule is quite unfair to newer teams that have not developed deeper FIRST programs, and especially to international teams like ours. It is great that the FTC mini kit will be available on FIRST Choice, but it will cost us an arm and a leg to ship it over (assuming they don’t run out of stock), and will put us at least a week behind.
It is great to encourage teams to get involved with FLL and FTC, but some schools can’t afford or manage more than one. This rule favors dynastic, well-funded teams that have built their schools around FIRST. My school in London has now developed a good FLL program, but there are no FTC competitions in Europe, nor are there any vendors for the parts. We are already struggling to finance our annual trip to the US for our FRC regional. We are down to only 2 UK teams from 6 due to these budgetary issues.
I think that the Game Committee needs to take a moment to think about these issues in the future. There always seem to be game elements involved that are impossible to get overseas (Orbit Balls, etc.). If they are going to open the competition up to overseas teams, they should consider the consequences of their decisions on those teams.
The only problem to international teams about purchase these items, is that we need aproximately 3 weeks to receive them via Fedex!
I do sort of understand the disadvantage. 422 has been mentoring plenty of local JrFLL/FLL teams since before I was a twinkle in the Dragon’s eye. And although Virginia does hold FTC competitions, I am currently unaware of any deep involvement of FTC in our area.
I guess the intention is for these “dynastic teams” to go into deeper relationship with the rookie/budget teams to build (multiple?) minibots that can be shared across each of their hostbots.
There is some way to build an chassi to our MINIBOT without TETRIX? I think that the rule about MINIBOTs should be change.
I believe that the parts either come in the kit or can be requested from FIRST.
Well, there point was to get greater communication with FTC and FRC. You don’t neeed to have a FTC team to actually do well. You just have to know how to adapt to different materials. Of course, the parts not being overseas issue is pretty bad, and they should take that into consideration. Maybe it’s something to talk to them about? Overseas discount on shipping, seeing as how you guys already pay lots of money for your travel (I think remember talking to you guys about that).
I would fully support a discount for just overseas teams than national teams.
Disclaimer: I have not studied the rules - This is based on what I heard during Kick Off.
The Dave/Woody/Dean trio emphasized that teams may share mini-Bots with other teams.
At least on the surface this would mean that an overseas team, or a Michigan team or a ___ team could contact another team or two that
- Will be at the same regional, (or is an FTC-only team near that regional???).
- Has experience using the Tetrix equipment well,
- Has a large-enough stockpile of Tetrix equipment that won’t already be in use for FTC events, and
- That would enjoy forming friendships with a team that isn’t Tetrix-savvy.
Ask them to build 2-3 mini-bots and let your team use one. They can help you keep it in good working order during the event and they can collaborate with you to design how to deploy it.
I suspect that more than one team will do this just for the GP fun of it, without having any specific partners.
Also if a team has a lightning-fast mini-bot, then they will obviously want to offer to loan a copy to their allies in each match. I think that building an ordinary hostbot and two copies of the world’s best (fast, easy to deploy, and RELIABLE) mini-bot is likely to get a team invited onto an elimination alliance (30+20 points is significant contribution to an alliance’s bottom line).
So, teams that aren’t able to emphasize the mini-bot construction, can emphasize the other parts of the game AND being able to deploy loaned mini-bots.
Blake
PS: If, for example, a London FRC team wanted to collaborate with a Virginia FTC-only team, and use (in every match) a mini-bot the FTC team built, the London team should confirm (in the official Q&A) that combining the FTC team’s people and equipment with their FRC team would be legal. The GDC might only allow FRC teams to borrow mini-bots from the other FRC teams that are in their alliance for any given match.
As far as I can tell from the rules, you are not REQUIRED TO use Tetrix parts, they are merely one of the options available.
Although, to be fair, the batteries and motors are almost a requirement as I don’t see any of the other materials being particularly useful for energy storage and conversion.
The mini bot (again, as far as I can tell) is NOT REQUIRED to use the RCX. I see nothing in the rules stating that MINIBOT motors have to be controlled through a speed controller. The minibot motors could (unless there is a rule to the contrary that I have missed) be running at the beginning of the match, and the hostbot would simply place the minibot on the pole and let it climb.
But I’m throwing a disclaimer in here… I haven’t gone through every inch of the rules yet… but consider why you would want to carry the extra mass of a Lego controller up the pole when you are trying to go quickly.
Jason
with all due respect to the GDC and FIRST, they seem to try and spread FIRST worldwide, yet they forget to keep in mind the other countries when doing these kinds of things;
although this is quite trivial, i think (during the webcast) they should have showed the FRC regionals taking place across the globe, not only in the US, especially since there are several Canadian regionals, among other places.
This is not unique to FIRST, nor is it unique to the United States.
I am a member of a worldwide professional organization based in the USA; they make a few gaffes each year when some “plan” didn’t properly consider the world outside the USA. (You’d think they’d learn…)
I also see this from organizations based outside the USA. A call center was proudly announced as being staffed from 09:00 to 19:00 GMT. When we mentioned the existence of Guam (a significant customer base at the time), they asked “What is a Guam?”.
I agree. I feel like while this goal of showing off all of FIRST’s programs on it’s 20th anniversary is nice, it is proving logistically challenging, especially to programs overseas or in rural areas. While having a minibot is not necessary (as only 2 of 3 robots will need to deploy minibots), it seems to me that a majority of the teams will want to attempt this, and the fact that it is logistically more difficult for them than better connected teams is an unfair disadvantage.
There are a good amount of FRC teams that either have a FTC team or mentor FTC teams in Virginia, and there are quite a few in the Richmond area.
To be fair, FIRST has gotten a LOT better in this regard in recent years. They hired an International Teams Coordinator, Carla Proulx, who has been great. She has been very responsive to our issues, though it seems that they must not have consulted her on some of these things. For example, we used to get our KOP more than a week late (2 weeks one year!). We now get them just a couple of days after kickoff.
There are also special rules to help us. For example, we can’t get the regulation pool noodles for the bumpers, but are able to get a waiver to use the UK versions (similar anyway). They provide us with batteries at the regional, since it is illegal to ship the batteries. They also pay an ungodly amount of money shipping the kit to us, and transporting our robot crate.
That said, they need to do much better, for the reasons I laid out and more. I am sure it is much easier in the UK than some other countries, so perhaps others have it even worse.
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