FRC Blogged - FIRST Choice Issue (And Part II)

FIRST General Forum
#56

This is the primary problem I see right now. Not only are teams not getting anywhere close to the same value from FIRST Choice, some of the components are used on robots (talons, CIMs, etc) and some aren’t (graphics cards, drills, wire strippers). This boils down to huge differences in team expenses for the season (real money dollars), AND large discrepancies in cost accounting for the robot budget limit.

Hopefully the cost accounting rules help remedy this in some way to make it more fair. I don’t think it’s right that a team that was able to get in and get 11 talons ($660 worth of robot parts) and puts them all on the robot would get all of those speed controllers counted as KOP costs and not towards the $3500 limit*, whereas a team which was only able to get graphics cards and wire strippers spends their own money on the same 11 speed controllers, and has to count that against the $3500 cap because it wasn’t part of their “KOP”, but non-robot items were.

IMO, the purpose of the kit of parts is to give teams a fair and solid foundation to start building their robots. The current setup does not do that. I have seen several good ideas for how to remedy the problem in the future, but if parts have already shipped, there is little that can be done to remedy the current situation.

I would like to see an improved FIRST Choice setup for the post-kickoff round, with re-stocked high demand components like motors and speed controllers. I would also like to see the robot cost rules account for teams who had to purchase critical items like Talons without FIRST Choice credits due to system overloads. It’s only fair.

*This is based on previous year’s rules for cost accounting

#57

I highly doubt there were many, if any, teams who looked at this as a chance to make a profit through resale or a chance to hoard pieces they had no intention of using.

That said, I would completely understand a team looking at the items available and saying “We know we’ll have a 4-motor drive train this year, lets pick up 4 Talons for it”, or “Our programming team really needs 2 new laptops for use at competition, lets pick up two classmates”. This way, they’re looking at what they’ll need, as well as the value proposition for their team. If you know you need to get something anyways, you’re going to go after the highest cost items on FIRST Choice you know you need, and simply buy the lower cost items later.

The problem is, if there are only 1000 Talons, and you have 250 teams that log in and purchase 4 each for their drive train, then you have another 2250+ teams who can’t get any.

You end up with the same results we have today, without any of the intentional malice or profit-making attempts.

#58

I don’t think most teams were “hoarding” to resell or be a detriment. 971 regularly builds robots with 10+ motors that all require speed controllers, and we usually build two robots. If I see no limit posted for items and the price is only 9 credits, I’m going to get as many as I can because I know I will use them all, and it represents a significant monetary savings (both from a team operating standpoint and robot budget). There’s nothing malicious about it, just trying to make the best use of resources.

If any teams did hoard with the intent of reselling, then yes, shame on them. But I suspect no one really anticipated just how quickly the high value items were going to sell out (although most of us probably could have told FIRST it would happen if they didn’t put a limit and had that low quantities).

Note: 971 wasn’t able to get in yesterday at all due to the <1000 bug, so we didn’t get any of the hot items.

#59

The easy fix for this is to make everything on the BoM count towards the budget at the fair market value (Talons = $60 and cRIO = $525 etc). So no logger will the KoP pieces be considered “freebies” interms of the budget contraint on teams. If this was to happen I think it would be in the best interest of Teams and FIRST to increase the budget limit to something more reasonable then $3,500.

Also I think this will be good to give team, especially the students, a more accurate idea of what a FIRST Robot cost. This cost is still missing the labor of assembly and fabrication.

-Clinton-

#60

While we are not a sub 1K team, we just were not able to get in. By the time access was restored, all the items we needed/wanted were gone!

Would it have been nice to have quantity limits in place so all teams had a reasonable chance to get what was needed? You bet!

Would it have been nice to have enough stock on hand to meet the demand created by the lack of quantity limits? Absolutely!

Are we going to whine because we didn’t get anything we were looking for? Not a chance!

Welcome to the real world where ideologies like Gracious Professionalism and level playing fields collide with human nature the drive to win. This is just the hand we were dealt this year. It is just another obstacle the team will figure out how to overcome.

We are hanging on to our credits so they can be combined with the additional credits released after Kick-off in the hopes that the stock of the parts we need has been replenished and we can get not only what we want/need, but also get the things that are dictated by the game play strategy we come up with.

#61

Aside from the leading zeros error (which is a result of insufficient testing – all teams experience this somewhere), I think the problems boil down to a lack of limits on parts in FIRST Choice and an inconsistent $ to credit ratio (individual team value functions aside).

Having some items where the $/cr ratio is 40+ and others where it is around 1 creates an imbalanced supply/demand.

My team opted for a right angle drill, axis camera, and several solenoid valves among a few other things because those were high value items which we needed and/or very likely going to use. We actually did not order the talon controlers, even though we plan on buying some to test out because their $/cr ratio was only 6.56 vs nearly everything we ordered, which was over $8/cr.

Having used 9 motors on the previous year’s robot, I certainly understand the desire of teams to get as many motor controllers as possible. I think 4 is a reasonable limit for “free”

I’m not in favor of a lottery approach to distribution, as this can really mess up a team’s flow of ordering parts that will work together in a system. Fairness is a term that gets thrown around in many different arenas, but fair to one person may not seem fair to another. All teams receive the same point value, but their $ value is not the same. Maybe it’s not fair that some teams can just buy items they didn’t get while other cash-strapped teams have to make due. Is it fair to pull back an order that was “shipped” to a team who had no control over other team’s ordering issues?

tl;dr
make the point values correlate to real prices. put limits on items.

#62

This is exactly what most teams think. They are not hoarding, they are just trying to get the best value for items they MAY use. This “fair amount” comes out to about $1000 worth of items. (And some teams were able to order over twice that value for the same number of credits.) Right now, however, looking at what remains available, I think teams would be hard pressed to find a value of $300 of items that they will actually use this year. (Baring the offhand chance you need to outfit a computer lab with video cards…) Far less than those who were able to order early.

I’m not suggesting that ANYONE should have done anything different in terms of ordering what they thought they needed or was valuable - the system was set up to encourage that. The problem is that it leaves many, many teams out in.

My suggestion is this:

  1. Make the credit value reflect street price/value to FRC teams (discounts are great, but no need to make a $200 Classmate the same credits as a $15 wire stripper)

  2. Let the system “go live” one week after ship date. This is to discourage teams from ordering stuff on spec.

  3. Include the cost of the items in the BOM (and raise the total allowance if necessary).

  • Mr. Van
    Coach, Roboox
#63

Regardless of the issues with FIRST Choice, this is still way better than how things used to be way back when. I’m just glad to get some useful equipment and parts for FREE.

#64

I suspect if the records were released you’ll find that the talons were gone nearly instantly. Any team who wanted some was likely to grab a big chunk of them. Especially with no limit. We could easily use 20-25 in a season. In fact we purchased that many a couple weeks ago from AM.

Edit: Just got another email saying my second order has shipped, so clearly AM is still trying to catch up with all the orders.

#65

Hummm… Way back when (not quite so far as when you had to return the control system each year, but for many, many years) we used to get a full control system, 4 victors, several spikes, numerous solenoid valves, a very good (if slightly large and heavy) compressor, 2 robot batteries, charger, servos…

FIRST Choice is not FREE. You can only access it if you have paid your registration fee. Yes, these items are donated, but so are many of the items that actually get shipped in the KOP. In fact, it is my understanding that according to all of the rules, the FIRST Choice items are an extension of the KOP, such as it is, and we have all paid for access to them. The problem is that it is far from equal access at this point.

I do have confidence that both FIRST and AndyMark will improve the system.

  • Mr. Van
    Coach, Robodox
#66

In an Email from Andymark the Talons when to an OUT OF STOCK state in 16 minutes!!!

Just like many other teams, those of us in Ontario need to save every little bit we can due to the current problems with the Province and Teachers. Losing out high demand and costly items from First choice is going to make it very hard to field an competitive robot this year. Why you ask, because the teachers are now on work to rule which leaves the running of the team by outside mentors that’s assuming the school admins will agree to it.

#67

Teams adversely effected by Inventory Management Issues should contact frcparts@usfirst.org.

Good afternoon,

There was an issue with FIRST Choice inventory management yesterday that allowed teams to place orders for parts that were no longer available.

If you believe you were adversely affected by this issue (i.e. you ordered an item that you thought was in stock, but later learned that the part was not in stock, and thus missed out on ordering other parts you would have ordered had you had accurate inventory data), please contact us at frcparts@usfirst.org.

Meanwhile, as stated in an earlier blog post, the credits spent on these items have been returned to your account.

We’re so sorry for this issue and for the frustration it may have caused.

Kate

#68

Keeping in mind that the previous control system was much cheaper than the current cRIO-based one, and FIRST was significantly smaller as well. Such things were much more feasible back then.

#69

Perhaps FIRST will take some action for teams <1000 who were unable to log-in to FIRST Choice?

Good afternoon,

There was an issue with FIRST Choice login yesterday that initially prevented teams with team numbers under 1000 from logging in for the first 15 minutes.

If you believe you were adversely affected by this (i.e. you tried to log in, couldn’t, and by the time you could log in, the items you wanted weren’t available), please contact us at frcparts@usfirst.org.

We’re so sorry for this issue and for the frustration it may have caused.

Kate

Our team had a plan going in that included 4 Talons plus a Digital Sidecar, but those items were gone by time we successfully logged-in at 9:20 PST.

#70

Yeah it would appear some teams got the shaft…but what can they do?

The only thing I think FIRST can do is make every item from FIRST Choice free for every team in the BOM.

Peyton

#71

That doesn’t really help all teams though… the teams that don’t have the funds to purchase some of the items that were available through FIRST Choice are the ones who will feel this the most. It doesn’t matter if it becomes free in the BOM if you could never afford it in the first place.

FIRST is taking steps to make things right… we lost half of our order to the restocking issues, and FIRST is offering help with some common items. I got this email the other day after I responded with having troubles with the system:

Hello Mr. Basse,

Thank you for your response. Again, please accept our apologies for your frustrations.

To compensate, we offer your choice of one of the following items at no cost to you (dollar or credit): Power Distribution Board, E12 Classmate, 4-slot cRIO chassis (no modules), battery, or Rev B radio. Due to our limited inventory, we can only accommodate so many requests of particular items. For that reason, please let us know your first and second picks. We’ll do our best to give you your first pick and the item will ship for free (FedEx Ground or track-able USPS).

Take your time discussing this with your team, but please let us know your decision by January 25, 2013 (but if you let us know by December 28, you should have it by Kickoff).

Thank you for your understanding.

Kate

Kate Pilotte

Kudos to FIRST for taking steps to lessen the burden on teams that were adversely effected. I am happy to be a part of an organization that recognizes the need that teams have and respects the entry fee that we all pay does indeed need to be respected. With that said, we will take the cheapest option on the list because it is what we need. We would have suffered without a battery to make it through the season, and it seems like a small price for an item but when $70 buys you two batteries and that is a around 10% of your budget… I just hope this will result in less of a chance of me or our lead mentor footing the bill for our robot build personally again. With the way Michigan politics are going, I need to keep a close eye on my paychecks…

#72

FIRST needs to do the opposite. They need to make it so that none of the FIRST Choice or KoP items are considered “free” in the BoM and raise the $3,500 budget constrain.

-Clinton-

#73

FIRST is going above and beyond when they offer free items like that. It’s great to work with an organization that not only acknowledges mistakes, but works so diligently to take responsibility for them and to correct them.

That said, I think we (the teams who are consumers of FIRST Choice) need to be careful in our complaints. I’ve seen many posts that are some variant of “we lost our order due to the restocking problem”. That happened to me, too. But it is important to understand that we didn’t actually lose an order, because we never had it. If the restocking problem had not occurred, the order would have been rejected to begin with. We only “lost” an order compared to our mistaken belief that we had an order.

It is possible (but I bet a careful analysis of the data would show this only happened to a few teams) that the restocking issue caused a loss in this limited scenario: You were considering ordering two items, one that is close to going out of stock, and one that incorrectly appears to have stock but is actually out. You only have enough credits to get one, and you choose the one that is actually out of stock, and that order is (incorrectly) accepted. By the time you find out that your order must be canceled, the other part has gone out of stock. You’ve lost out on that order. I’d be curious to find out how many teams actually experienced that.

Where some of us actually lost orders was due to not being able to log in for the first 10 to 15 minutes, so stock was gone before we had a chance to place the order. In that case, there is a reasonable possibility that we could have gotten a valid order in, had we been able to log in at the correct time. That happened to my team, and I have sent an email to FIRST (in response to Kate’s email sent out yesterday). It will be interesting to see if they can do anything about it.

It’s also been great to see all the constructive suggestions for a better system, on this and other threads. I bet we’ll see a much improved FIRST Choice next year. Keep up the great work, everybody!

#74

I think part of the problem was that items were not removed from stock when placed into a cart, only when the pay now button was clicked, causing items to jump out of carts. The items should be removed from available inventory as soon as it was placed into a cart. If items get dropped later and put back “on the shelf”, then someone else has the opportunity to pick it up. I suspect this would be an easy way to reduce some of frustration faced by teams.

Wetzel

#75

This method has it’s own problems, of course. Specifically, when do you decide that someone isn’t going to complete their order and empty their cart? You’d have to put some kind time limit on it, and a short one could be really frustrating. On the other hand, a long limit is going to cause a lot of confusion when Talons start coming back in stock 30 minutes after FIRST Choice opened. I don’t think there’s any good way to set things up with the current Black Friday rush philosophy. Any little tweaks are akin to arranging the shelves and aisles to minimize the injuries during the mob scene after the doors open.