Cardinal Exchange

[Mr. I]

An idea has been floated (by Grace and her dad) about a web service Team 811 can create that can benefit all teams, especially the rookie teams. Called right now the Cardinal Exchange, it would be an eBay-like site where teams can list the unused hardware (motors, cylinders, sensors, etc.) that they have in their inventories from years past, and other teams can shop and purchase, probably only paying shipping. (Let's face it, we have tons of excess motors in our back room ... how much would we PAY to get rid of them?)

I am not aware of such a service within the FIRST community, but I can see how this would be extremely beneficial to rookie teams (i.e., teams without a lot of either spare parts or money). It could also be of great use to even veteran teams, who might need a part that we have lying around untouched.

True story: About 7 years ago, FIRST contacted teams in the area offering Bosch window motors to anyone who wanted to come and pick them up. One of our mentors snarfed up dozens of them, only to later find that these motors were no long part of the Kit Of Parts, and we now had bunches of unusable stuff. Fast forward five years, a call went out from another local team begging for the Bosch motors for a project they were working on. We made great points with the Souhegan team when I dropped off 18 motors to them!

Okay, it might be a great idea, with lots of GP potential ... there's lots of questions to answer, such as:
- How do we do this? (Should we do it all by ourselves, or perhaps leverage off of Craig's List, for example)
- Where would the site be located? (Off of team811.com, or somewhere else?)
- Should we limit it to just FIRST teams?
- How do we get word out to the FIRST world? (links off of usfirst.org, chiefdelphi, etc.)

Let's start the discussion, please.
_________________
"It's NOT Just A Robot Thing!"

[aaronh]

While this idea is incredibly noble, some questions of practicality must be raised...

Site design: there are numerous open source content management systems that would make architecture similar to that of ebay easy to achieve

Servers: I am unsure on the specs of the current team811.com server, but such a website would best be hosted on a dedicated server.

Maintainence and administration: Such a grand project would likely require a few members to dedicate time to administration, which raises the question if we have enough man power during build season whem the demand would be greatest.
_________________
Aaron Hammond

[Grace]

Ok so...

How do we do this?

we have people that understand how to create websites... aaron or andrew would u
be willing to help?

even if we don't create the website ourselves and link it through craigslist or
something we still would have to test all the hardware and sort the working parts

I have no idea how to get in contact with craigslist or something like it but, do we
have any contacts there or know anyone who could?


Where would it be located?

I think it should be linked to our website and maybe FIRST or Chiefdelphi, but I
think it should be a separate address


Should it be just for FIRST teams?

That was our original idea - for rookie and low funded teams to get supplies other
than whats included in the kit of parts, but it doesnt mean that cant change


How do we get the word to FIRST teams?

well first i think we need to contact FIRST to let them know and make sure its ok

maybe we could put a flyer in rookie packets, or a link on the FIRST and Cheifdelphi
websites


other questions:

how do we get supplies from other teams?

- we could try to network through FIRST to get the word to teams that might want to
donate, but would they have to ship the supplies to us? maybe it would be better if
they could just update their supplies up to the website, and ship from their own
locations

would the rookie teams have to pay anything? maybe all they have to pay is shipping


Ok thats my 2 cents... any other ideas?

[RHebert]

I think this is an AWESOME idea. Very GP.

I'm thinking it would be best to:
-limit it to FIRST teams
-run the inventory system "virtually" - have the "selling" teams ship directly to the "buying" teams in the style of EBAY - we don't handle any parts. The "selling" teams set up a "paypal" account (?) and charge only for shipping. If the payment part is too complicated to figure out right away, we could at least provide a bulletin board for teams to list and request parts, and they could handle the transaction with a check by mail. But a paypal-ish option would definitely be a plus. Maybe someone at FIRST has experience setting up such an option (or do any of the FIRST vendors have paypal?) - they might be helpful, although some might view it as competition. I agree with Grace that we should at least get an opinion from FIRST about this, since there is a possibility of an appearance of competing against their vendors. If they're not thrilled about it, we can discuss further, but it would be good to know how they feel.

I would think each team's website would have a contact email address listed somewhere and ChiefDelphi would be a good place to market the idea. If FIRST is not opposed, we might be able to get a list of rookie teams to get their "wish list."

I think we have enough people (even in build season) to make this work. I'd be glad to oversee it once it's up and running, though I don't have any experience setting it up.

I like it.
_________________
Roger Hebert
Mentor
"We tend to judge others by their actions, but ourselves by our intentions."

[Admiral Apple]

I don't see why paypal wouldn't work, but bar that amazon provides a digital checkout service linked with amazon accounts and handles more direct means of payment (credit / debit). Paypal would most certainly be the better option. As for the site design, like aaron said, it honestly wouldn't be too difficult, a good many cms's have e-commerce built right in.

e: first post yes
_________________
Andrew Nissen