Really not a fan of the new trend we’ve seen in the last few years where vendors get products approved by HQ before they even get production samples approved… I (and I feel like I can speak for a large percent of the community) would have preferred vendors launch for 2026 season with stock on hand at launch.
I would be fine if they shifted everything about 2 months sooner rather than waiting to get stock in at the last minute. If you want to wait until the fall to announce a new product then you need to have the product on hand. This goes for all vendors. I feel First should not approve an item for the year if it cannot be shipped out to teams by November 15th. That would give 2 weeks for slow/international shipping and it would allow teams to have hands on items for at least 2 weeks before Xmas break.
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You all are getting pretty antsy.
No one is forcing you to use these motors.
Just sayin’
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Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on it.
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…would you be interested in signing up for a six figure production kickoff PO without a firm regulatory commitment that a market exists for your niche hobby product?
I’m thrilled that FIRST moves forward with approvals on a prototype sample basis. Derisking the regulatory process early in development makes it easier to enter the market, which means more options for end users to pick from.
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Preliminary approvals are a thing. HQ could very well say “hey we will approve this for the upcoming season as long as we receive a final production sample by this date…” Or “hey we’ve approved this item, we can offer you a small amount of financing, if shipments are delivered to teams by this date we will give you preferable payment terms”
There are lots of ways HQ could incentivize suppliers to create a better operating environment that benefits both suppliers and teams.
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Suggesting HQ finance any supplier for any product in any way is a pretty big ask that I suspect is DOA.
Mandating a requirement for any specific level of inventory at a given time puts a significant burden on the supplier, one that many small suppliers could not financially absorb.
FIRST suppliers don’t make bank. It’s a niche product in a niche sport. People have some serious misconceptions about the size of a lot of these suppliers as well - even the ‘big name’ ones. Most are very small organizations with only a handful of employees. All that adds up to a very fragile economy that is easily broken by ‘requirements’ by HQ.
A lot of people also don’t understand the time lines we are talking about. If I’m going to make a new product… how far in advance do I need FIRST approval? It takes a long time to go from concept, to design, to multiple revs of engineering samples, to final product and then to ramping up production. I can’t guess how long that takes in the FIRST ecosystem with smaller suppliers. Wild guess, a year? So when does FIRST’s approval pop up in that process? Is there an initial then a final approval? It would be neat if FIRST came out and explained the ‘new part approval’ process to the community.
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Absolutely.
We should also recognize that, because FRC is a seasonal thing, being able to supply parts off-season, or have a stockpile of parts ready for the beginning of the season, can be a very expensive thing. Recognize that manufacturers finance the production of their inventory – if you have $10M of inventory financed at 12%, then having that inventory a month early costs you $100,000. And, there’s risk on top of that: if you’re building a new swerve module and somebody else comes out with their own slightly better version at the same time, it might take you a while to sell off all those Swerve modules, and you’re paying interest on the financing the entire time.
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I was referring to the electrical component side of things not COTS items like swerve modules, elevator kits, ect.
I also didn’t mean a supply for the whole season, just a sizable amount that a good amount of teams could get a couple for hands on testing and fitment before kickoff. Like limit the first batch to 2 per team if you have a minimal amount on hand but at least have a larger order amount ready to go or in the works.
Just my 2 cents
Yeah, reducing it to electrical components does reduce the amount of financed inventory (compared to keeping an inventory of everything).
My purpose was just to point out why this dynamic of of parts availability exists – it’s probably intuitively obvious to mentors who have been in the working world for any length of time, but isn’t so obvious to students.
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<joke>
But all the cool kids are using them!
And they’re literally better than everything else! Just look at the spec sheet!
</joke>
It can be hard to fight the allure of something shiny and new that may or may not improve your performance or give you a competitive edge.
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2014 chair bots.
drops mic and leaves
This spec sheet helps a lot, we’ve been trying to figure out if we should run our 2025 robot at 100 or 132 mph, having a quick comparison table helped us figure out that gearing to roughly one sixth the speed of sound is probably our best bet for next season!
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“Why aren’t these flying around at Mach 3 with bombs attached to them!” -Gen. Chuck Yeager
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The wealth of suppliers and the health of their business is not my concern. I’m concerned for the teams buying products from said vendors and the experience they have where a simple monetary transaction is taking place.
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That sounds like that companies account department’s problem, not my team’s bank account.
We’ve simply been lucky enough to not be burned (or blind imo, falcons should of been a wakeup call) by a massive product flop to make it an issue.
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Shouldn’t it be though? With the way COTS parts have shaped the FRC landscape over the last several years, if FRC specific vendors were to just up and disappear (ie, the health of their buisness took a turn for the worse), I’d imagine that would have large and far spreading impacts on modern day teams.
Edit: I don’t suppose a mod could seperate the discussion here about vendor timelines and such into a separate post?
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If the health of suppliers’ businesses don’t meet certain minimum thresholds, then teams will not be able to buy products from those vendors.
This is not a high-margin market and vendors need to make enough money to pay their employees, fund their R&D efforts, and hopefully have some left over to grow.
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“Do as i want or i will kill the program.”
Vendors dont need to do preorders, and time and time again vendors burn teams by overpromising and underdelivering, at times causing great harm to teams programs.
Teams will buy from vendors regardless. We should be able to hold them to the same basic standards i hold a video game, electronics, or a car company to.
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