[FRC Blog] Expanding the Kit of Parts

FIRST General Forum
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Posted on the FRC Blog, 5/15/23:

Expanding the Kit of Parts

Written by Collin Fultz, FIRST Robotics Competition Senior Program Director and Ted Hood, Kit of Parts Engineer

We are so excited for CRESCENDOSM presented by Haas, but before we get there, we have off-season events to attend, game details to finalize, and an exciting announcement to make!

The FIRST ® Robotics Competition Kit of Parts for has evolved to meet the changing needs of our teams. These changes have included rolling out FIRST ® Choice, Product Vouchers, and the ability to opt-out of both the Drive Base and the Black Tote.

We use feedback from our Partners, talking with teams at events, and each season’s Kit of Parts survey to help guide the changes made for future seasons.

You can continue to help us make improvements to the kit of parts by filling out this year’s Kit of Parts survey! The survey takes about 20 minutes to complete, and if you include your team number, your team is eligible for a chance to win your choice of goodies. We ask that no more than one student and one mentor from each team fill it out. You must be at least 13 years old, and it closes on Friday, May 25, 2023 at noon (Eastern Time).

One of the most requested additions to the Kit of Parts, from both Partners and teams, is the Everybot.

(For those who don’t know, Team 118 started the Everybot in 2014 with a goal of being an “affordable, competitive, and elegant robot intended to play the FIRST Robotics Competition challenge. Everybot can be built with nothing but basic tools and items found in either the kit of parts or purchased from your local hardware store or online [FIRST Robotics Competition] retailers.”)

Some of the folks that create each year’s Everybot also work with Team 118 and did not want the advanced knowledge of the game that would be required to put materials to build an Everybot in the KOP. As an alternative, we worked with a member of the community to design a base robot specific to CRESCENDO that will be included in the 2024 Kit of Parts.

This robot will be a guided build and will be able to accomplish some of the basic game challenges. It is not intended to be a “bolt together” solution, and it will still require some manufacturing by the team.

The team may need to purchase some materials (e.g. raw stock and fasteners) from a local hardware store. Harder to source items (i.e. parts that are only available from a few specific suppliers) will be included in the Kickoff Kit. Veteran teams will need to reuse some electronic components. Rookies will receive what they need in the Gray Tote.

We’re still working on the support resources that will be available to help teams through the build and programming process. We also know that the capabilities of this robot could drive a team’s decision about opting out of the Black Tote. We’ll share more information on the relative capabilities of the robot later this summer.

We want to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Team 118 for pioneering this resource for teams. Our hope is that Team 118 (and all those creating resources for teams) continues their work in 2024 and beyond. The robot in the Kit of Parts is designed such that functionality to accomplish more of the game challenges can be added without having to start over on the robot design.

Just like the goal of the Everybot, our desire is that adding a base robot to the Kit of Parts makes FIRST Robotics Competition a more affordable, accessible, sustainable, and scalable program.

TL;DR

…we worked with a member of the community to design a base robot specific to CRESCENDO that will be included in the 2024 Kit of Parts.

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The Robonauts Everybot crew is super excited about this change coming to FRC. The Everybot initiative was created to provide a more sustainable, competitive, affordable, and enjoyable experience for teams and we think the FIRST Kit Bot will drastically raise the floor of competition for all teams in the FRC community. We look forward to adapting our program to integrate the FIRST Kit Bot into our design process to continue accomplishing these goals. Any resource that enables increased accessibility and inclusivity within FIRST is a tremendous win!

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This is an incredible change, and if the KOP-bot is half as good as any of the past Everybots have been, this is going to be game-changing for so many teams.

I am quite curious who this Member of the Community is. The 118 crew has learned some lessons over the years about making everybots that are easy to program and don’t require sensor feedback that I hope have been considered in the design of the KOP-bot.

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Maybe the Kit of Parts will truly be a kit of parts now instead of a box of discarded industrial stuff.

This is a good move.

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Now we have the MCC (WCPeverybot?), reverybot, everybot, and finally, the feverybot.

love to see it. Will be interesting to see how well the design works, and how much it will influence designs of teams who build their own robot designs.

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This is really, really cool, and I’m looking forward to seeing the level of competition be raised once again. I hope that this will come along with upgrades to the AM14U5 to make it the modern & easy to work with kit chassis that teams can continue to rely on.

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This is amazing news! Hopefully 118’s admission into the FRC HOF will soon follow!

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Likely an unpopular opinion, but I hope the Everybot provided in the KOP moving forward takes after the 2020 or 2022 design principles and goals, and not the 2023 ones.

IMO the 2023 design stretched too far in it’s attempt to do everything, and was too complex for new teams to build robust/effectively. I genuinely feel this will be a great addition to the KOP in future years, just hope that the members involved in it’s development dial things back a little.

(Just my $0.02/opinion)

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So I understand correctly, everyone gets the FIRST EveryBot, correct? Veterans receive the superstructure components and drive base (if they opt in) and the rookies receive electronics, superstructure, and drivebase (dont think they can opt out of that).

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Now that there’s going to be a base robot in the KOP, I see even more reason for the Everybot to continue to be a highly competitive, capable robot that can do a bit more than Dozer.

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I am not the community member

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This is an incredible change to continue moving the program forward, better than removing the bag or removing the BOM.

Props to Collin, everyone else at HQ who made this happen, and the community member.

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It does now makes sense for the 118 Everybot team to consider expanding its goals, but the post you replied to was in reference to the bot included in the KoP. I agree with what they said, the 2023 everybot was a bit of an overreach and less effective because of it. I hope the “official” everybot remains in the slightly simpler realm of previous years.

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I can’t express how big of a deal this is. I’m actually overwhelmed by my emotions right now. Having the parts and instructions in the kit of parts to build a robot that can accomplish basic challenges, ensures that every team regardless of resource level will have access to a robot that can compete effectively each season. This fixes so many of the systemic issues in the program. Rural and international teams won’t have to shell out for exorbitant shipping to build this robot. The build guide and other resources (if they’re anything like the ecosystem of Everybot resources) will ensure that the teams aren’t starting a pile of parts and guessing. Having these parts in the kit means teams get started right away, and can have some budgetary certainty to their season. This is an absolute game changer.

Thanks to everyone at FIRST HQ and the community who are helping implement this massive change to the program. And of course thanks to the folks on Team 118 for leading the way with the Everybot. You’ve helped create a program altering change that will allow FRC to continue to grow and become more sustainable, thereby impacting hundreds of thousands of students in process for years to come.

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This is going to be huge as long as whoever they partnered with is experienced in robot design and usability.

Whichever vendor they went with for this will also have a big leg up on their competition which makes me uneasy about the equal information access in FRC vendorworld.

Still a good change for teams. Nice job @Collin_Fultz

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I love the idea of FIRST doing this!

I also this helps FIRST build at least a semi competitive robot that can more accurately test the game before kickoff. To both find issues (and fix them) but also to be able to give teams more warnings and things to think about when revealing the game. (Instead of teams having to build an extremely expensive complete field to find out how some basic field elements work)

Things I would have like to have seen first “warn” about in past games:

  • How tippy a robot can be when extended 48" - Charged Up
  • How easy bounce outs happened without backspin - Rapid React
  • How incredibly sticky the yellow balls were / How much damage they got - Infinite Recharge
  • Etc…
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This is one of the single best changes I have ever seen made to this program. Even if the specifics of the kit bot (a real kit bot!!!) don’t perfectly hit the mark this year, the precedent this sets moving forward is massive. Teams with little to no design resources will be able to get driving and scoring easier than ever before, teams can stop throwing away the scrap industrial hardware that usually gets sent out with the kit, and the GDC will have back-and-forth with an outside member designing a real, legal, robot.

I love everything about this.

I wonder if we ever get to know who the community member is. Will it be the same person going forward? Will it be a rotating position?

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image

Color me exceedingly impressed.

Preemptively to anyone who complains about this after the design is released because “xyz isn’t the best way to play the game”, well - just remember, any reasonable design is better than no design.

The floor has been lowered further than I could have imagined.

Collin is gonna need to slow down with all these great changes, otherwise FIRST is gonna be perfect in the next few years and he’ll have to take early retirement.

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I like this idea but would be worried about design consistency (ie mounting standards, and other features). Hopefully this also opens to door to a better featureset on the KOP drive chassis - ie smaller mounting holes and better super structure mounting, including better bumper mounting.

I really really hope all vendors (at least those who donate to the KOP) get an equal shot at game information going forward.

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It sounds like next year is going to be a good year to be a rookie team in Indiana!

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