By now you may have heard what I announced yesterday - the pricing and the financial support we're providing to grow FTC in the coming year. In summary...
The new kit is a true competition kit. Some of the specifics include:
11 Motors (4 DC Drive, 4 Servo, 3 Lego)
10 Sensors
Rechargeable Batteries
3 complete sets of software (and team licenses)
The list goes on. In short it's everything you need to compete in a FIRST event in one package.
This kit, including software and licenses, would retail for about $4,000. We've worked hard with the commercial partners to drive down the cost of this kit to teams. The price to FIRST teams?
The price of the complete competition kit is $900.
As a non-profit organization FIRST is fortunate to have many great supporters. Several members of the FIRST Board of Directors (past and present) have generously donated funds to help teams and Affiliate Partners make the transition to the new platform.
Next year Affiliate Partners will receive $5,000 each to fund FTC events in their area. This is a one-year grant and will be used at their discretion for anything to do with putting on a great FTC event.
Over 800 teams competed in FTC this year. Returning teams will receive $450 toward the price of the new kit. They'll register with FTC and then be eligible for the grant.
Finally, we'll offer 250 need based rookie team grants of $450 for the 2008 season. Those same rookie teams will receive another $275 next season.
We're committed to bringing teams who have been with FTC with us to an exciting new platform that will challenge FTC teams with real-world challenges.
I'll keep this blog up and running to announce more details about ordering and kit of parts detail.
Stay tuned!
Ken
PS - Check out: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/robotics/first/atlanta-finals-2008/ to get a look at this years FTC Championship. At about 4:15pm we'll run the showcase (new platform) championship on the Dome floor. It will be telecast by NASA via the link.
36 comments:
Whew, that's a relief, good job FIRST :D So what variety of gears do we have, can we buy extra motors? I'm guesing the kit is an NXT set with added stuff? You've made connectors that interface the metal with LEGO right? Can we use any LEGO (i.e. the old Robotics Invention System)? How much metal is in the kit?
This is a solid triple FIRST (IF not a home run)!
@Andy: i'm not sure they can answer that question yet. They are probably still evaluating the data from the test teams. I really want to see the demo this afternoon. I can't wait to get this new kit into the hands of my kids.
Wow...that is great. And i saw the kits..and i have to say that i'm impressed by its robustness and amazing dexterity, but i am disgusted with it's lego arms and linkage. But, i'm guessing that's where VEX comes back into play.
I just have one question...will the $900, excluding the grant for returning next year, include registration or is that excluding registration???
Sunny,
I asked that question to Ken Johnson in Atlanta and the $900 is just the kit.
So returning team can expect to pay $275 for registration plus $450 for the kit plus whatever the regional site charge for the competition.
hmm...you know i jsut realized that NXT's recommended age is 10-14 it seems to me mabye its just me i dont know but FTC is for ages 15+?
Will it be possible to buy the port extender/multiplexor for the NXT from HiTec now and LabView for the NXT so that we can begin to develop our courseware for next year?
In the description, the new collection has often been called a "Complete Competition" kit, as though other kits are not complete.
Will teams be allowed to buy and use parts not in the kit to build their competition robots? What kind of restrictions on purchase will there be? Weight, total costs, commercial availability, etc...
The showcase game was very different from previous FRC and FTC games in that it was NOT sports-like (no player to player contact or direct interaction).
Is this an indication of where FTC will be going? I realize that FLL had this approach far more than did FTC, and had a lot to do with the Lego parts falling apart if the robots rammed into each other. But aggressive defense and offense strategies have a lot to do with spectator and player interest and it would be a shame to see that aspect diminished or eliminated.
At the showcase, I noticed the use of a lot of Lego parts on the robots for grippers, manipulators, levers and so on.
And someone kindly showed me how the aluminum had been drilled out to allow the builders to snap Technic/Mindstorm plastic pieces.
I realize that builders might have been hesitant to use Vex metal framing and parts at this event, but I thought that earlier announcements had indicated that such use would be allowed. If it had, the showcase robots would have been significantly more sturdy.
Will non-Lego, non-kit parts be allowed, including those from the Vex? (I was also thinking of McMaster purchases like bearings, gears, chains, extruded aluminum and so on...)
The kit description mentioned that a kit purchase will include site licenses for three software packages. Are those three: NXT-G, LabView and RobotC?
Does that site license allow me to install a copy of each of those packages on any computer associated with my organization (my non-profit robotics organization is virtual with most members working on their robots from home... they take that robotics programming laptop with them where ever they go to build/or compete.)
We were asked to use only the parts that came in the beta kit. Each of the showcase teams provided FIRST with a great deal of feedback on what we used and did not use in the kit and what we would have liked to have.
FIRST is not going to limit teams to using only the parts in the kit. They just want to make sure that the starter kit really does have everything necessary to build a reasonable robot that can solve the kind of challenges that teams will be given. You will still be able to buy additional parts to fullfill your "vision" but you won't necessarily have to.
We have also been told that we will be able to use the Vex metal parts if we want. I doubt that we will want to.
The expansion box that was described in an earlier post was a prototype and is going to change significantly for the final product. Instead of a single box with 6 servo ports and 2 DC motor ports there will be two smaller boxes. One box will have 6 servo ports and the other will have 2 DC motor ports and two sensor ports for shaft encorders. Up to 4 of these boxes will daisy-chain together in any combination.
When combined with the NXT sensor and motor multiplexors described earlier it will be a very flexible and powerful platform.
Just think what you could build with 16 sensor ports, 4 high power DC motor ports, 3 NXT motor ports and 12 servo ports.
The language platforms that came in the beta kit were labview, NXT-G and Robot C. We choose to use Robot C and were very happy with it indeed.
FIRST indends to make FTC competitions in the future be far more autonomous-friendly. I really liked the fact that the showcase tournament had a longer autonomous period and that goals scored in autonomous mode were worth twice what they were in driver control mode.
Jeff:
Thanks for the info. It answered many questions.
You mentioned that you did not think that teams would want to use the Vex metal, although they would be allowed to do so. Why do you say that? On the showcase robots, I did not see any other metal framing other than the C-Channel. Most of the showcase builders chose to use Lego plastic parts other than the main C-channel frame. Was there other metal for contruction?
To help me understand your perspective, did you come from a FLL, VEX and/or FRC background?
FTC NEEDS to have interactions between the robot and FTC NEEDS to have similar challenges to years past. The game is the deal breaker for me and a lot of other people. Having an FLL style game is akin to FIRST shooting itself in the foot and should they choose to do this they will lose many more people to VEX regardless of what is in the kit. I would be ok with a longer autonomous period assuming they kept the rc period the same or even longer. Part of the problem is that this year's game didn't really lend itself to autonomous since pushing a platform into your quadrant was worth 7 points and it was difficult to score on moving goals in autonomous. If they do decide to add more weight to autonomous they should just extend the period by 10-20 seconds. This would give teams an added incentive to do more, but not necessarily penalize them for doing poorly. It would also be nice if next year we were just the year to learn the programming without needing to do something particularly major. Then next year move into the heavier autonomous.
Also, will there be another blog post?
There are a lot more metal pieces in the box besides the C channels. There are a wide assortment of flat pieces, angles, brackets, tubes and so on.
One of the reasons that I doubt that my teams will use the Vex metal is that I don't think the hole patters will line up very well. Also, the square holes in the vex parts will make things awkward. If you look at the LynxMotion web site you will see that they have a huge variety of aluminum parts. The kit included only a sub set of what you will be able to use.
My guys rapidly discovered that they needed far fewer pieces to make their bot the way they wanted with the new aluminum parts than they did in the Vex world. They didn't have to add a bunch of additional parts just to make the metal strong enough to hold itself up.
Our robot had two separate arms. One was built entirely out of metal and was used to pick up and deliver items. The other one used a mixture of metal and Lego parts. Its sole job was to position a color sensor in different locations. It didn't need to be strong enough to lift anything. It consisted of a metal tower with a servo on top. The servo moved a bracket with a Lego adaptor on it which had a Lego beam attached. That beam had a Lego motor on the end which moved another Lego beam with a color sensor on the end.
We did have one of the Lego beams break during the tournament but that was because our robot fell off of the ramp out of the arena and landed on its top (and on that arm) on the concrete floor. If one of our Vex bots had done that it would have been a twisted wreck.
Some of the robots used a lot more lego parts than we did. For the most part we used Legos mearly to mount the sensors although that isn't strictly necessary as it is possible to bolt them directly to the metal if you use long screws and some spacers.
I've been coaching FTC teams for 2 years, coaching and judging FLL teams for 8 years and teaching robotics for 12 years.
Jeff
I believe that both the autonomous period and the operator control period are important. I would like to see both of them have equal weight (not necessarily equal time). My preference would be that teams could do very well by being good at one or the other but the truely great teams would be the ones that excelled at both.
This year's FTC Challenge really was autonomous un-friendly. It was virtually impossible to come up with something reasonable for the robots to do on their on given the dynamic nature of the field. Last year's challenge was much better in that there were several different possible ways to score in autonomous mode. My guys scored two balls to the high goal in autonomous mode every round last year.
The total amount of Easy C code they had to write for last year's competition was around 20 lines.
For the showcase tournament this year they wrote over 800 lines of Robot C code. They wrote that much not because they had to but because they could. They designed their bot with the arms sicking out the side. The arena was mirroed on the diagonal so they used the color sensor to detect if they were the Red or Blue aliance at the begining of the round and automatically reversed the entire behavior of the robot. Front was back, left was right and so on. Forward on the joysticks was always forward on the robot regardless of which end was the front.
Instead of manually positioning the arms they used buttons to move all of the servos simultainously to different positions as needed to pick things up, transport them and deliver them. They have started building up a library of functions that they will use year after year to do things. For example, they wrote a low level routine that they can pass in a compass heading and it will turn the bot to face that direction. The great part about it is that it will automatically determine if a right turn or left turn is shorter and the speed of the turn is based on how far it needs to go. If you ask for a 180 degree turn it goes very fast at first and then slows down as it approaches the correct heading.
I would love to see them come up with a really interesting challenge next year that offered a number of different possible ways for robots to score in autonomous mode, counted the autonomous scores much higher than driver control scores and then had additional tasks that could only be performed by two alliance robots working together in operator control mode. It is the alliance aspect that really makes operator control mode interesting to me.
Jeff
The new platform looks great. My big question at this time is can the old VEX controllers be used with the new platform or do they and all but the metal pieces of the VEX kits become obsolete?
Secondly, is the playing field we saw during the demo in Atlanta the one that will be used for the FTC challenge next year or will it be totally different, or does anyone know at this point?
You are correct in that only the metal pieces of the Vex kits carry on. Of course that doesn't mean that you can't use the Vex kits to make a prototype or to use as a learning/teaching tool for new team members.
As to the field, the showcase challenge will not be used for the 2008 FTC season. That challenge will be released in September and will be brand new (i.e., never before seen by teams).
Jeff - I don't like feeling like the bad cop here, but.. Some of your comments seem to lack context:
In earlier comments, Jeff McBride said:
... Just think what you could build with 16 sensor ports, 4 high power DC motor ports, 3 NXT motor ports and 12 servo ports.
Well, if I am using my $450 complete kit, I will do what I can with 4 main motors, 4 servos, 3 LEGO motors, and the eight? sensors I get. I suppose if I want to do more I will need to buy some parts to add to my "complete" kit.
... The language platforms that came in the beta kit were labview, NXT-G and Robot C. We choose to use Robot C and were very happy with it indeed.
It's good that RobotC is available for an increasingly wide variety of inexpensive robotics kits. I too want to start using it and shed the EasyC 2.X user interface.
I hope that the RobotC developers have time between now and the start of the FTC season to develop and thoroughly debug all of the important libraries for the FTC version of RobotC before the FTC season starts.
... We did have one of the Lego beams break during the tournament but that was because our robot fell off of the ramp out of the arena and landed on its top (and on that arm) on the concrete floor. If one of our Vex bots had done that it would have been a twisted wreck.
The Vex machines I build would not be twisted wrecks if they fell from that height, so I suppose our "mileage" varies.
Regardless the FTC aluminum does have an excellent strength to weight ratio, and I'm sure the same is true for the LEGO pieces.
However, in terms of absolute strength and in the context of a typical FTC game, the mechanical LEGO pieces aren't very strong. We had to be extremely careful not to bust our LEGO-based mechanisms into flinders. As little as one moderate accidental bump from another bot would have required extensive rebuilding (assuming the individual parts survived the bump)
If FTC games are complicated enough for students to need to use all of the parts in their complete kits; then they will need to figure out how to design around that fragility because the LEGO parts are a substantial part of the kit; or the games will have to severely penalize robot-to-robot contact.
How to penalize robot-to-robot contact during an extended autonomous period is going to be an interesting challenge for the FTC GDC.
... Instead of manually positioning the arms they used buttons to move all of the servos simultainously to different positions as needed to pick things up, transport them and deliver them. They have started building up a library of functions that they will use year after year to do things. For example, they wrote a low level routine that they can pass in a compass heading and it will turn the bot to face that direction. The great part about it is that it will automatically determine if a right turn or left turn is shorter and the speed of the turn is based on how far it needs to go. If you ask for a 180 degree turn it goes very fast at first and then slows down as it approaches the correct heading.
All of the programming work you describe sounds great, but as far I am aware, there was nothing preventing you from do the same sort of RobotC coding throughout the FTC season that just ended (or even with EasyC if you were masochistic enough). If having this kit inspired your team to use RobotC and having a Vex kit did not inspire your team to use RobotC, then I guess the kit had a positive effect on them.
Blake
In an earlier comment Steve said:
You mentioned that you did not think that teams would want to use the Vex metal, although they would be allowed to do so.
The main reason I see for deciding to avoid using Vex metal in a new FTC design is this:
The new FTC's small round holes are too small for the #8 screws that the Vex kits use. The Vex square holes are designed to give a decent (but certainly not snug) fit around #8 screws.
Another reason would be that the new FTC bushings and axles are too big to fit through the Vex holes; and the Vex axles would just flop around inside the large holes in those FTC parts. Maybe you could use the FTC (#6?) screws to hold a flat Vex Bearing in place well enoungh keep a Vex axle stable but I'm not optimistic.
The two styles of metal parts really don't go together well. I doubt many teams will use the Vex metal extensively in their actual robots.
Instead they might use use it for prototyping (see Darlene's comment), but that won't work very well either. The motions you are likely to want to create with the new kit's parts and the sizes of the parts, just don't carry over well into Vex parts.
I wouldn't count on using a whole lot of Vex metal to supplement the new FTC kit's metal. My suggestion is to think of your current inventory of Vex parts as teaching tools you can use to introduce your rookies to robotics, and that you might use in local scrimmages or intramural competitions. When the rookies graduate from that they can start using the $900 ($450 for your first one the first year) FTC kits. After you accumulate enough of the FTC kits you can retire the Vex equipment.
For more info about the metal, definitely check out the LynxMotion web site to see what they have and how they use it in their kits. Also, they show some pretty cool designs that can be built by adding parts to the new FTC kit.
I wouldn't bet my life on claiming that the new FTC metal is derived from the LynxMotion metal, but the resemblance is striking.
Blake
Blake said:
"Well, if I am using my $450 complete kit, I will do what I can with 4 main motors, 4 servos, 3 LEGO motors, and the eight? sensors I get. I suppose if I want to do more I will need to buy some parts to add to my "complete" kit."
There is in fact a difference between the parts necessary to build a viable competition robot and the maximum capabilities of the platform. I do not expect my team to ever need to use 20 or more motors and servos for a FTC challenge. It is just fun to think about.
"All of the programming work you describe sounds great, but as far I am aware, there was nothing preventing you from do the same sort of RobotC coding throughout the FTC season that just ended (or even with EasyC if you were masochistic enough)."
Even if Robot C had been a legal option for the FVC platform I doubt my guys would have attempted it without the interactive debugging interface that is possible with the bluetooth connection. (WiFi would be even better but we'll take what we can get).
My guys are not terribly excited about using a lot of lego parts in future FTC robots. Even for the showcase they used fewer Lego parts than most of the other teams. I suspect that they will be very conservative about using them in the future.
The key pieces that we are pleased with are:
1) The ability to interactively debug the robot.
2) Stronger drive motors
3) Better sensors
4) Challenges that encourage autonomous development
5) Game style controller instead of R/C style controller
6) Easier construction (fewer problems with weak metal pieces)
As far as I am concerned, the only advantage of being able to use Lego pieces is that it opens the door in general to allowing parts from multiple vendors. Of course cut up Lego tires make pretty good grippers also. :^D
As a professional developer and programmer, I love programming our robots. There is a reality however about the interest level of the kids in doing so. That reality seems to work out to about 1 in 10 kids who are otherwise willing to be involved in robotics.
I was never happy with the emphasis of mechanical engineering over control systems, but losing 90% of the potential kids is not all that attractive either. Hopefully we are not driving away the kids who are not interested in programming and control systems.
In an earlier comment Jeff said:
...Of course cut up Lego tires make pretty good grippers also. :^D
That is exactly what we did too. We probably need to recommend to the FIRST that they put several extra tires in the kits. :-)
It's interesting seeing the comments about the "weakness" of LEGO constructions here. My background is *not* from FTC or even FLL, but more general LEGO robotics. I've been entering events for several years, including sumo (that is certainly a robotic "contact" sport), and rarely if ever have to repair the construction. I've had all-LEGO robots fall off 3' high tables and continue to run, as well as tumble down stairs. Mine don't come apart... perhaps there are new construction techniques to learn.
Additionally when a LEGO connection or actual LEGO element fails, they are relatively easy to replace. There are two ways to make a robot: mil-spec and bombproof (and often then heavy as well), or lightweight and rapidly fixable. Which you prefer is of course up to the team... but I'm not sure I'd judge them too hard until the teams (hundreds of teams) have a chance to work their magic on them.
Similarly with the SW. I've got little doubt that a season of FTC use of RobotC will point out weaknesses and problems - that's certainly what a season of FLL did for NXT-G. That might be because like it or not, organizations like FLL & FTC are some of the toughest users of this sort of SW.
--
Brian Davis
Over the course of three weeks we went through 7 or 8 new releases of the Robot C compiler as they added support for the beta hardware and fixed bugs. They will have more work to do to support the final hardware when it is ready and there will be other bugs to find. However, I can not say enough about how much the Robot C guys did for us. They responded to our emails, answered questions and fixed bugs even on Sunday evenings.
One of them even spent an hour on the phone with my son solving a Bluetooth connection problem that had nothing to do with Robot C.
Jeff
I would like to know who the $900 would be payable to. I ask because in my organization, I can pay for things for our teams if they are going to a non-profit organization such as FIRST. However, if the fees are charged by a different company (for example directly to Vex) I cannot get the write-off and must use a different pot of money (of which I have less funds in).
(from a different Steve)
Here's a really nice picture of the competition kit we got (the pilot teams):
http://www.tappoint.com/robotics/FWC2008/index.htm#FTC
(scroll down a couple pictures)
Some people don't like the mix of LEGO and metal. I think it's pretty nice. The LEGO processor & sensors give teams some pretty solid technology, and the metal allows them to build a pretty solid robot.
I did have some problems with my LEGO claw (on the end of the robot's arm) staying together, but there were several reasons for that. First, I built a new claw Thursday afternoon, by taking apart an old claw and trying to reuse the very few parts I had available. I didn't have any problems with the rest of the arm (made of 100% LEGO)
Second, as anyone there was able to see, I was a bit rough with my robot. (yes, I need to learn to play nice with my toys, and not smash them into walls)
Third, we were asked to limit our building to parts that came in the kit. Had I been allowed to use ANY Lego part (like teams will be allowed to do), I wouldn't have had a problem.
I did drive the robot into the walls, ramps, and other robots, on more than one occasion, and after the round was over, I always had it reassembled before the next round began. And, I never broke a LEGO piece.
I really think this new kit is flexible enough that if you DO like LEGO, it's very easy to add more. If you don't like LEGO, it's not really required.
Also, having LEGO parts allows teams to make modifications to their robots AT the event. Which I think is pretty nice.
Steve H.
to the Steve above, is the NXT stuff in the kit the following products besides software:
Education Resource Set
and
LEGO Mindstorms Education NXT Base Set?
that would be awesome
I had 5 of my team down in Atlanta. They did not like the new platform and demo game at all because they felt they were being thrown back into FLL. They thought the remote looked like something from an ancient video game. The last straw was the theme based demo competition just like FLL. They're asking about finding VEX tournaments next year.
We're going with the new platform because the FIRST competitions are established and known by colleges. The kids who participate have a possiblity of getting a scholarship also. Personally, I like the emphasis on "gracious professionalism",the alliances, and the general spirit of the organization. But I'm going to have to do some fast talking to encourage my kids to return this fall.
The cost of the new kits is a big problem also. Last year we started with 4 groups of 5 kids each and gave each group a kit. As the fall semester progressed, they split into two teams, each taking the equivalent of 2 kits. After registration, we picked up 2 more kits under the reduced price and used them for spares.
I can't buy 6 kits at the new prices this year. I don't think starting the newbies off with the old VEX is viable -- not after what my kids have said already.
Jelj13 - Do both.
For example, assuming there is a demand for both (and I am assuming that there will be), I plan to use our PVL local league resources to put on both FTC and Vex tournaments.
Buy what you can afford to equip at least one team of FTC participants, buy replacement parts to revitalize your Vex kits for the other teams for this next season.
Guide the students as they pursue both sources of inspiration. A rising tide will lift all boats...
Over time you can accumulate enough FTC equipment for everyone, if that is the direction the students take you.
Blake
Andy,
The kit we got only came with the LEGO Mindstorms Education NXT Base Set, not the resource kit.
Steve
I've been an FLL coach for many years and I'm hoping to field an FTC team in the near future. The $900 has me a bit concerned but I understand it. One option that I would like to see is a kit for teams moving from FLL to FTC that would exclude the lego parts and NXT brick since we will already have quite a collection of those. That might allow for a low enough price to get us started.
I asked about that in Atlanta and they are planning a less expensive upgrade kit for FLL teams moving to FTC. It would include everything except the Mindstorms box.
Jeff
That is good news. Hopefully a price will be announced sometime soon.
Just wondering, Is there somthing like tank tread in the new kit and is there chain of any kind...?
I just found out that the only way you can order the kit is by paying for it with a personal credit card. The good news is that, once your team is registered, you're given a URL that recognizes your team's eligibility for the discount. The bad news is that they want $67.50 to ship to the NYC area. THE REAL COST IS AT LEAST $517.50 without taxes.
Post a Comment