New things I liked that we made good use of:
Expanded FIRST Choice through AndyMark
Banebots voucher
Digikey Voucher
What I’d like to see:
More Victor motor controllers. This is the big thing we always need many of and get shorted on every year, and our old robots are not functional anymore because we can’t afford more Victors every year. I would gladly do without probably 50% of the rest of the kit for more Victors.
More CIM motors (can’t recall a time when we didn’t use the maximum allowed, which was more than what was included).
#25 Chain and master links, FR8-ZZ bearings, black zip ties and black adhesive mounts, heat shrink, some non-insulated flanged spade terminals that fit Victors (must be flanged), Sharpie markers (original type) since people always lose or take them.
A good chain breaker tool for #25 chain (the normal type aren’t good for #25).
More game pieces if they’re proprietary (we always need more, they always wear out/pop/etc, and it’s always a wait).
McMaster Carr voucher.
Banebots CIM-U-LATOR gearboxes and/or P60 planetaries.
Home depot gift card, if the field requires anything from Home Depot.
Printed promotional materials for FIRST Robotics (a stack of brochures for instance)
or
Nothing in the kit except essential required things, and some money off the registration fee. (And I know the KOP is largely donations and is not entirely directly correlated to registration fee.) In terms of physical things in the KOP crate, I can’t even recall using anything this past season that’s included that’s not required.
Anyhow, I do thank all the suppliers for their generous contributions. Even if we don’t use a lot of this stuff right now, perhaps someday we may.
As a note on software, I actually like receiving physical install media. It’s instant gratification, and it’s easier for me to keep it locked up somewhere, than to remember or find a login to some online system. Ideally we’d have both.
Aside from all of the above, what I would like most is advance notice of specifications of key items that are both expensive and required but not included for veteran teams for the upcoming season (e.g. cRIO, motor controllers). This would allow the school district to purchase it for us and have it show up in time, rather than mentors having to buy it out of pocket. If someone can definitively tell me the cRIO that is available now is the exact one that will be used next year and there will be no new or better model available, I’d like to have my school’s purchasing people order one now, so I get it before kickoff. Schools are notoriously slow at such things, so it helps when we know ahead of time that we need to spend big money.