[Yaaarc] New FRC Control System - Announcement & Training

[Keith Mc. (Route-To YAR)]

On Apr 18, 2008, kelmray at gmail.com wrote: 
> I'm not sure just how "real world" that really is though. It looks more to me like NI trying 
> to promote a new product. [...] 

Well, yea, they *are* trying to build a partnership.  (Though this product isn't exactly "new".)
NI had been a huge FIRST supporter (and a supplier) for a while now.

To me, it makes pretty smart long-term biz sense.  You supply literally thousands of high 
school teams with YOUR hardware (at a deep discount).  Pretty soon, wave after wave 
of students emerge as engineers in companies that know how to whip up solutions, and
become your customers.  

This is exactly what DEC did back in the 60's and 70's with the PDP series (esp PDP-11).
They GAVE out as many manuals to colleges as they wished for FREE, and sold them 
the hardware at near cost.  Within a few years, PDP-11's were everywhere in industry.  
IMO this is one of the main reasons it made them them the first serious competitor to 
IBM back then. When DEC got eaten, the people that bought them stopped that program.
Sure enough, within a few short years, DEC market share for their sold hardware died off.

Whether or not THIS hardware is what one would like, you gotta hand it to them. It's rare 
that you see this kind of far-think at most US companies these days.

> I would probably never choose this controller based on it's price. There are many solutions 
> out there that are much cheaper, and provide at least as good performance.
> Don't get be wrong, NI does make great hardware, and it's a pleasure to work with, but 
> it comes at such a high cost that if I were to quote one of our typical systems using it, 
> we'd never get the job.
> -Ray

Probably true (WRT price), as of NOW.  

But what's brilliant about this move are a few of the "side effects" of this deal:
1) This deal increases NI's annual manufacturing quantities, by thousands of units.  
   This MAY make the hardware drop in price for others.  That in turn MAY benefit NI 
   with increased market share, and the loop repeats.  If nothing else, it's a great way to 
   offset development costs.
2) Teams will get a VERY special price for the system.  Final price and config is still TBD,
   but the scuttlebutt is that FIRST is shooting for the entire system to be similarly priced to 
   the old one.  *IF* true, this means it'll probably be in the $1-2K range fully decked out, 
   which is a HUGE discount from normal pricing of an NI chassis and its plug-ins.
3) FIRST is already talking about designing "special plug-ins" for future contests.  
   This increases the availability of neat gadgets to plug into the NI chassis, for other uses.
4) According to the FAQ, even though this system is intended for year to year reuse, all 
   teams will get the option of buying one additional "spare system" per year at the reduced price.
   That means there will soon be a *lot* of this hardware floating around and available for other 
   R&D projects.
5) FIRST obviously *has* to provide some sort of NI equivalent virtual instrument training material.
   That makes learning about virtual instrumentation a lot cheaper than taking factory seminars.

All of this benefits *everyone*:
- The kids get access to a fairly modern, industrial chassis and pretty high tech development tools,
  allowing them to experience some fairly bleeding edge technologies.
- Mentors get access to NI-type training, AND experience with NI products, which could increase 
  their professional standing & marketability.
- NI starts lining up future biz, and gets an immediate quantity boost to their manufacturing arm.

Who knows if this will work or not?  I'd heard about them using this chassis a while ago.  
Like you I was skeptical at first (due to price et al), but this may work out well.

No promises have been given, but given the current marketing pose of NI I'd bet that if one 
becomes an FRC team mentor, you'd have a decent "in" with NI as well.  (If we're lucky,
mentoring a team might even translate into some *personal* deals on similar hardware.)

Bottom line: Even IF one is not interested in this Industrial Version, it's still worth a look-see and
some tinkering time for the experience.  After all, in my experience once you've learned how to do 
something with "pro" hardware and tools, whipping up that "personal" scale/price version of it a
bit later on a shoestring becomes a LOT easier.  (...Heck... given Moore's Law, within a couple 
of years that "shoestring" version will probably *exceed* the current technology! :-)

Just my $0.02...

- Keith Mc.
ACTI - Automation Computer Technologies, Inc.
FIRST FRC Team 1502, "Technical Difficulties"