Safety, a Shopping List, and FIRST Championship Allocations for Districts
Written by Frank Merrick.
Safety, Safety, Safety
We’ve said it hundreds of times before: Nothing you are doing in FIRST is worth getting hurt over. With the start of the build season just a few weeks away (yikes!), the time for thinking about safety is now. The Safety Manual has been updated for the 2020 season with help from our friends at UL. The manual can be also be downloaded from the Safety Page. We urge all teams to download and review the manual. Also, please take a couple of minutes to review your build areas for any potential safety hazards. Ensure your tools are in good order and that you have personal protective equipment (PPE) available for all members. Just a few minutes of prep can prevent an accident!
Shopping List
You wanted it, you got it (again). You can find the list of materials you will need to build the Team Elements of the field for the INFINITE RECHARGE season here. Please read the document carefully, especially the difference between the Half Field List and the Minimal Field List. Teams will vary in what elements they feel they will want to build for their own use after they see the game and consider their strategy. As noted in the document, if money is especially tight, you may want to wait until after kickoff before you make purchase decisions so you don’t end up buying raw material you don’t use.
FIRST Championship Allocations for Districts
Last week we took a snapshot of the counts of teams that had secured (paid) their registration fees and ran it through a ginormous spreadsheet to determine FIRST Championship allocations for 2020. Here you go:
FIRST Robotics Competition District
FIRST Championship Location
FIRST Championship Slots
FIRST in Texas
Houston
37
FIRST Israel
Houston
13
FIRST North Carolina
Houston
14
Pacific Northwest
Houston
28
Peachtree
Houston
16
FIRST Chesapeake
Detroit
20
FIRST in Michigan
Detroit
90
FIRST Mid-Atlantic
Detroit
21
Indiana FIRST
Detroit
10
NE FIRST
Detroit
33
Ontario
Detroit
27
If you are celebrating any holidays next week, I hope you have a great one!
There are a lot of interesting items in there, really.
1¼” Schedule 40 x 10’ long, Black Iron Pipe, 1 for the “minimal” build, but for half-field it’s “2 (one will need to be cut in half)”. I could see the minimal not needing to cut it if it’s just something to interact with and the width isn’t material, but for the half-field needing two 5-foot pieces and one 10-foot pieces I find… more intriguing than I probably ought to.
And then there’s the “2” Hook Fastener, Adhesive Backed”, where you need 54 feet for a half-field, but still need 34 feet for the minimal field. That seems like a lot, and makes me suspect that hook-and-loop is once again part of a major scoring mechanic, and it’s less “repeated” in the same way across the field. For comparison to last year’s shopping list:
Feet of Hook Fastener on Shopping List:
2019
2020
Minimal
30
34
Half-field
65
54
(Edit: Fixed last year’s minimal field to 30 feet, because apparently I can’t read.)
I think that releasing the shopping lists makes for a great game hint. Since it tells you so much, and yet so little…
I think only one is because of the growth in the region. Israel “lost” two spots between 2018 and 2019. But Israel does have five rookie teams in 2020.
I remember spending about $600-$700 in wood, glue, and screws for 2018 and 2019 fields here in SoCal. That was the full scale and switch in 2018 and the full cargo ship and one rocket and one loading zone in 2019. Anyone want to wager a guess what this year’s list will set me back?
@RoboChair and I have thrown together a Google Sheets version of the Half Field Shopping List with McMaster P/N’s for many of the parts where it makes sense to buy there. Hopefully this is useful for teams.
