Bill Blogged -Were you in the crowd?

4/27/2011 Bill Blogged -Were you in the crowd?

Good Afternoon Teams,

I’ve just finished the first episode of FRC Live on the stage next to Pit Administration. We couldn’t arrange a live feed this year, but a recording was made and I’ll let you know as soon as we can get it posted on the web.

National Instruments joined me on stage to announce the new cRIO FRC2 which will be included in the 2012 rookie kit of parts and which will be available for purchase sometime in the fall. The cRIO FRC2 chassis will be less than $300. The new upgrade kit which includes 3 modules and the cRIO FRC2 chassis will be less than $550. All existing cRIO modules are compatible with the new cRIO FRC2. You can visit National Instrument’s booth for more details today or watch National Instruments and the usfirst.org website for more details coming soon.

Kate and Collin joined me on stage to thank Andy Mark for their role in creating and maintaining the FIRSTChoice system which successfully allowed for better personalization of the 2011 FRC Kit of Parts. They shared FRC’s plans to expand FIRSTChoice options for teams in the coming season.

I answered a few questions from the crowd and from the "notes for Bill" box.

One person asked about the thought process behind having two FRC fields in the pits. As the FIRST family of programs grows, we need to ensure all programs are represented at Championship. In order to ensure FTC and FLL fields have a place of equal prominence in the Dome, the decision was made to reduce the number of FRC fields. Rather than move one division into the pits, we went with having two fields in the pits and developed the plan to ensure all teams had time in the dome. The Friday night stage performance was not the primary reason for the new dome layout.

I’ll return to the stage at 3:30 to discuss what happens behind the scenes at FRC. If you can, please join me.

See you then.