FIRST Robotics Competition Blog

Drive Base Opt Out: Take 2

Oct 12, 2017 Written by Kate Pilotte, Kit of Parts Manager

 

We had more than 1,000 teams participate in the drive base opt out last week.

That was fun, right? So much fun we’re going to open it back up… for two reasons.

  1. Canada, there’s new information that we think will affect your preferences. AndyMark has confirmed that you, Canadian teams, will be able to use your AndyMark voucher at Studica for in-country ordering. One rule: once you pick Studica, you can't use the PDV at AndyMark. It’s one or the other.
  2. There was a bug that caused some teams’ selections to be undone. Essentially, if a Lead Mentor 1 or 2 checked the box, and then later something else was done in the team’s account that wrote to the database, the drive base selection reverted to the default “unchecked.”  We know to add that to our test cases now. I’ll email the ~250 teams we suspect may have been affected by this directly too. The bug’s been fixed.

We will reopen the drive base opt out selection from noon (Eastern) tomorrow, Friday, 10/13/17 (good thing we’re not superstitious) to noon (Eastern) on Friday, 10/20/17.

So Lead Mentors 1 and 2, please take a few minutes to log in and make sure that the option displayed reflects your team’s preference.

For those of you that missed the first deadline or have changed your mind since, consider this a lucky do over.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience of this, and I thank you for your patience.

Finally, the only reason we’re able to take a week to reopen is because AndyMark’s going to absorb some of the schedule crunch this puts on drive base prep. We thank them, tremendously, for being so accommodating.

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Comments

Will the voucher amount be adjusted to reflect the exchange rate and pricing differences for the Studica and Andymark products.  Also, will Studica offer the full line of Andymark products?  There selection currently is limited.

Does opting out change the cost of the kickoff? And what do you get if you opt out? Still a bit new at this, not sure why a team would choose to optout. Thank you!

Would it be possible for Canadian Teams to use their FIRSTChoice credits at Studica as well?

Update from Studica: Yes, the voucher and pricing is adjusted for the current exchange rate to Canadian dollars. Studica also does offer all AndyMark Products, however we only have about 300 listed on the website. As teams ask for items we tend to add them. First Canada will let the teams know who to contact to to use the credit. We will not get the website modified for a couple of weeks to apply the code.

I still am not able to apply the code to a Studica order, is this still in the works?

Yes, for issues placing an order or using the system, please contact pdv@andymark.com.

There are other people on my team who may like to read this post. Please do not require them to create a FIRST account and log in before they may read it.

Hi. Blog posts are public, so if someone’s having trouble seeing them, please encourage them to contact frcteams@firstinspires.org. Thank you!

We are a victim of this BUG.  We opted out but did not realize the option had reverted back. We were not contacted by FIRST regarding this either.

Thanks for letting us know. If you contact frcparts@firstinspires.org, they can let you know what and when communication about this went to your team.

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