We are helping a team that has zero returning mentors or students from last year. They have not ordered anything from FIRST Choice, yet, so they have 850 or so credits available. There are a few things they can use, but I am wondering if new items ever get added to FC this late in the game - basically, should I spend out the rest of the credits on fuel (hah hah) or save them on the off chance that someone drops a gearbox or something in late. I am guessing the answers is spend (or just leave the extra credits on the table), but maybe someone knows about this?
(Checking their shop, they have about 10 years worth of kitbot parts and one battery for each year of their existence but not much else. We are trying to get them to build the Everybot but I am not sure the funds are there for even that. Kitbot drive base and the goodies in the KoP are great, but teams need to know beforehand that all they will be able to do with those is drive/play defense and they need money to compete. )
Nothing was added in 2017 when I worked there, and nothing sticks out as new now compared to Round 2’s start. There are a few useful things left in there, but it’s tough to have missed all the shiny stuff.
Could see something coming together with the Johnson Electric motor and some old AM14U belts for ball handling, and maybe the Sport kickup box with a (bought) 57 Sport and either the RedLine or 775pros in the totes (or that two-motor input from last year’s kit) to make it hang (please do the numbers on that though, I would but I’m due in class shortly).
I hope it comes together–we see a lot of those teams down here too!
2723 was that team prior to 2015 so I know where this comes from well. There weren’t any usable parts of the previous year’s robot that year (so it was worse that rookies) and the team culture was terrible. It takes a huge shift in attitude to become even moderately successful after being so bad for so long.
The good thing about the team we’re helping is that they all seem enthusiastic and willing to learn, and are held back by any preconceived notions. Just need to convince their school to kick in some funding or they are going to be stuck with just whatever we can loan them. We are currently budget restricted due to paying for our new workspace, but we can probably come up with a few things to help them.