Lots of good ideas here. Keeping cost in mind, here are my thoughts:
Totally agree: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14 , 21
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*]10: Conditionally, I would advocate making the axles longer, but definitely not stronger. This is a weakness that can easily be designed around, and besides, IFI axles cost too much as they are now.
*]14: I understand that these are available elsewhere, but buying these (in particular) individually is very frustrating.
*]21: We’ve run into this issue as well, but again, if it costs too much (if IFI has to restructure the entire motor), it’s not worth it, since it can be designed around.
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Strongly disagree: 1, 3, 13, 20, 23, 24. These are modifications that I think would cost IFI significant amounts of money to develop and/or package, which would ultimately result in higher consumer prices. In much the same way that a simple robot is often more effective than a complex one, I think simple pieces and fewer choices are the components of a more efficient company (think: cheaper parts).
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*]1: Here, the issue lies in the packaging. I don’t know how much extra cost it would take to cut different lengths, but it would definitely raise the price of each piece if it had to packaged and sold in different lengths. For example, I don’t agree with IFI’s current plethora of standoff sizes - most of those (like the 5") can be made with other standoffs and double-ended screws.
*]3: This seems like a minor annoyance that could easily be forgotten. While we too have difficulty distinguishing aluminum from steel in a pile of metal, simply picking it up solves the issue quite quickly. Again, the aluminum already costs too much, and having IFI label it could only make that worse.
*]13: My minor issue with this is that most teams don’t need it. For large schools with multiple teams (Gladstone, Exothermic, ACME, Robowranglers, etc.), it might come in handy, but they will also need a lot of it. So basically, either teams will not use it, and choose instead to use the prefabricated ones, or otherwise use such large amounts that IFI won’t know how much to package. I think it would be wiser to keep this as one of the things to be bought on the side from vendors solely dedicated to PWM cables and the like, rather than having IFI deal with another variation of a product it already sells.
*]20, 23, 24 - All of these would definitely add cost to an already expensive motor kit ($200 on a fully stocked robot). IFI sells shaft encoders, potentiometers, and limit switches separately; while some of these are not the most reliable sensors in the world, I would rather suffer the extra inconvenience of mounting the sensors separately than see Vex turn into something like FTC, which uses a kit of parts so expensive it defeats the whole purpose of a “low-cost” robotics challenge. I would much rather spend several days redesigning a drive train to accommodate the appropriate sensors than pay $63.96 for a servo or motor controller (see http://parts.ftcrobots.com).
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While Bill approached this from a convenience perspective (his team has very little time), I tried to examine its cost (funding is never guaranteed, and our team members sometimes pay for parts out of their own pockets). So IFI, if you can instate any of the changes on Bill’s list at reasonable cost, please do it, otherwise just keep our costs low.
John Mueller
