Time to answer Q&A?

[FTC5110]

Hello FTC staff. We submitted a Q&A about using a variant of the Moto G5 phone on 5 October because that's the only one currently available in our country. Our team will compete at the Australian FTC championship in about 6 weeks time. How long will it take you to answer this Q&A? Ideally we'd like a bit of time before the event to prepare some new phones.

See attached screen clipping. The Q&A topic says "Unapproved". No idea what that means. Does that mean you haven't approved it for GDC to rule upon? Or does that mean it's a dead question?

[Alec]

Hello team 5110. I am not FTC staff, but I believe in past seasons international teams were allowed to use any phone that works so as not to hinder teams in your situation. If they don't respond to your posts or to your emails, try calling the Pre-Event Support phone number in the game manual.

[JoAnn]

Hello FTC staff. We submitted a Q&A about using a variant of the Moto G5 phone on 5 October because that's the only one currently available in our country. Our team will compete at the Australian FTC championship in about 6 weeks time. How long will it take you to answer this Q&A? Ideally we'd like a bit of time before the event to prepare some new phones.

See attached screen clipping. The Q&A topic says "Unapproved". No idea what that means. Does that mean you haven't approved it for GDC to rule upon? Or does that mean it's a dead question?

Hello FTC5110,

The forums are working a little differently this year. Unapproved just means that your question is in the queue, but it hasn't been answered yet.

Thanks,

JoAnn

[FTC5110]

Hello team 5110. I am not FTC staff, but I believe in past seasons international teams were allowed to use any phone that works so as not to hinder teams in your situation. If they don't respond to your posts or to your emails, try calling the Pre-Event Support phone number in the game manual.

Well it seems like hindering international teams is on the agenda.... https://ftcforum.usfirst.org/forum/t...8521#post68521

[gof]

Well it seems like hindering international teams is on the agenda.... https://ftcforum.usfirst.org/forum/t...8521#post68521

Actually, the G5 IS the international version. The G5s is the US variant. You can get the G5 off a number of sources (e.g. eBay), but they are all imports.

[FTC5110]

Actually, the G5 IS the international version. The G5s is the US variant. You can get the G5 off a number of sources (e.g. eBay), but they are all imports.

How have you determined that? State actual model numbers too please.

[gof]

How have you determined that? State actual model numbers too please.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moto_G5#Variants

Note that the G5 is model XT1675 and is not available in the USA, only the G5Plus (USA variant XT1687).
I errored on the G5s comment. It's the "Plus" versions for the USA (neither of which are on the approved list).

[JoAnn]

Well it seems like hindering international teams is on the agenda.... https://ftcforum.usfirst.org/forum/t...8521#post68521

Hello FTC5110,

I'm sorry you believe that hindering international teams is an agenda for the program. I can assure you that it is not our goal to hinder any team, regardless of where they are from. Our technical team (of two people) works hard to QA phones to make sure they do what we hope they'll do. We would not wish to endorse a product, only to find that it will cause a team to have difficulties at a competition.

I think you have my email address, but if you don't, it is [email protected](dot)org. I would welcome a conversation with you.

Thanks,

JoAnn
FTC Program Manager

[FTC5110]

Hello FTC5110,

I'm sorry you believe that hindering international teams is an agenda for the program. I can assure you that it is not our goal to hinder any team, regardless of where they are from. Our technical team (of two people) works hard to QA phones to make sure they do what we hope they'll do. We would not wish to endorse a product, only to find that it will cause a team to have difficulties at a competition.

I think you have my email address, but if you don't, it is [email protected](dot)org. I would welcome a conversation with you.

Thanks,

JoAnn
FTC Program Manager

Understood that Tom and co. have much to do.

It took FTC/GDC from October 5 until November 11 to answer the Q&A about G5s when, going by what's been stated, was always going to be no anyhow. The topic of this thread was "Time to answer Q&A". Our team gave up waiting early November and ended up buying some G5s phones because that is all we could purchase locally and stock was almost exhausted by that time. Now thanks to ridiculously slow answering of Q&A and silly restrictive phone model rules we have wasted a fair chunk of our team budget and will have to compete on 1 December with some unreliable phones. Pretty sure that fits the dictionary definition of hindering.

JoAnn - Please provide a link to somewhere the Moto G5 can actually be purchased new. Where did FTC HQ buy their G5 phones from? Could you even buy them from that source again?

[FTC12676]

I can not understand why FIRST restricts phone models esp all phone models except e4 all extinct species and e4 is available only on boost website everywhere else it is 3 times price. Same goes with game controller Xbox 360 it is discontinued by Microsoft long time back and have fun finding exact same model number anywhere else. I strongly recommend GDC allow any phone as long as team is fine with no support from FTA.

[FTC3491]

Same goes with game controller Xbox 360 it is discontinued by Microsoft long time back and have fun finding exact same model number anywhere else.

Phones can be a challenge, but gamepads aren't an issue. Here's a link to by the Logitech Gamepad. It's even on sale.
https://www.amazon.com/Logitech-940-...gitech+gamepad