Ending the auction early was a generous thing to do, but unnecessary in my opinion. If an FRC team decided to pay more than $750, who are we to say they cannot? Anyone familiar with eBay knows that the eBay final value fee on $780 is $50. Add the PayPal fees, and you’re slightly underwater.
Randy, as I’ve mentioned privately, you approached this in a transparent and above-board way. You never meant to deceive, and I will speculate that even NI would approve of how you handled this. Sure, there might have been a ‘better’ way, but ain’t that the case always?
Some notes to summarize and close up this thread, including a few things I learned along the way:
1. **Each FRC team can buy a new FRC cRIO for $750 in every calendar year, where the calendar year boundary is January 1.** I called National Instruments today and confirmed this. The nice woman at NI explicitly told me that if your team has not purchased a $750 cRIO since January 1, 2010, you can buy a $750 cRIO this month (December) AND buy ANOTHER $750 cRIO next month (January), because next month is 2011. Or, if you already bought a cRIO in 2010, and you need another one, you can wait just 3 weeks from now and buy it for $750 starting January 1. (If you have already purchased a $750 cRIO during a given calendar year, and you would like to buy another one in the same calendar year, you pay the academic pricing of $1500 for the second one.)
There was a little confusion on this point, because some folks (like me) weren’t certain when the year boundary occurs for the $750 annual cRIO deal, so I wanted to let you know what I found out.
To order an FRC cRIO at the special pricing, and to verify your eligibility, call the National Instruments FRC hotline at 866-511-6285. This information is documented on the National Instruments FRC page, in the middle of the page under “Resources for FIRST Competitors,” and you can also get more details by giving them a call.
2. **If you have spare FRC parts for sale, the best place to sell them is right here on Chief Delphi in the [CD-Swap](http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/parts.php?action=about) area.** It's not so good to sell your FRC parts on eBay, as I have discovered. Bill Miller, Director of FRC, reminded all of us in Bill's Blog a while back that we should only sell FRC parts to other FRC teams, not to the general public, because FRC vendors very generously give deep discounts (and donations) of their products to FIRST, and we don't want to undercut their normal business. By selling FRC parts here in the [CD-Swap](http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/parts.php?action=about) area, you know that you are selling to another FRC team. If you sell them on eBay, it is harder to verify that the buyer is really in FRC. Plus, of course, Chief Delphi is seen daily by more FRC teams than any other place on the planet, so this is a great place to sell your spare FRC parts.
3. **The final round-up on the FRC cRIO our team was selling on eBay: **The bidding went up to $780, at which point I closed the auction to further bidding because (as I mentioned [earlier on this thread](http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=984120&postcount=17)) I didn't want to take advantage of teams who didn't realize they could buy a new cRIO every calendar year from NI for $750 (see above). It turned out that there were two teams interested in our cRIO that had already used their $750 cRIO purchase opportunity in 2010, and they were hoping to do so again in 2011. So, both teams were willing to go above the $750 price point on eBay (rather than pay the $1500 academic pricing for a second cRIO in one calendar year), so there was some disappointment when I cut off the bidding when it crossed the $750 boundary. With 20-20 hindsight, I could have handled the situation differently, but I had already announced on this forum that I wouldn't let the pricing get above $750. The integrity of our team's reputation, and not taking advantage of other teams, is very important to me. So, I cut off the bidding, as promised.
The winning bidder at the time we closed the bidding on our cRIO on eBay was Team 2614 MARS from Morgantown, WV. When they found out that the second-highest bidding team was very interested in the cRIO, Team 2614 very nicely bowed out and will instead buy a $750 from NI in a few weeks (after January 1). Thus, we sold our cRIO to the second-highest bidder who was Bob Steele, head coach of Team 1983 Skunkworks Robotics in Des Moines, WA. (Bob is a member here at Chief Delphi and left a note earlier on this thread.) Per my note earlier on this thread, I offered to sell the cRIO to Bob for $740, since it is used, even though Bob had bid $770. However, Bob’s team has already used their $750 cRIO opportunity for this year, and they want to buy yet another one for $750 next year, so Bob offered to pay the full $770 he had bid. We compromised and agreed to lower Bob’s payment to $750, and I picked up the shipping cost. Team 1983 is planning to use the cRIO to build a special FRC electronics board in a commercial suitcase that they can lend to many of the 25 (!) rookie teams in Washington State this year to help them get started, which is an awesome thing to do. So the cRIO went to another FRC team at a fair price and a good cause.
Sorry for the long post. Thanks so much to everyone for their comments and assistance along the way. I learned some things, and hopefully our experience will help other teams that have spare FRC parts to sell.