I've done quite a bit of both as a mentor. These are anecdotes, not arguments. I'll try not to repeat what's been stated.
- Bot-for-bot, Championship FTC and VRC robots cost about the same. It's the engineering process (CAD, torque calcs) and the custom materials (sparse in VRC, plenty in FTC) that can make on bot cost less than the other over the course of a season. My recommendation: If the mentors for the group are beginners to the engineering process in general, go with VEX. It's less expensive because the parts last longer. If you have good experience in overall design, tbh ask around your local area. FTC can be cheaper if you do the math & design properly.
- Regardless of the program, transportation & hotels are the most expensive costs in robotics anyways. If you plan to go to the championships in any program, be aware of that.
- My experiences with VEX competition days is magnitudes better than my experience with FTC competition days. Dropped wireless signals, people who give me the impression that they have 'agendas' in FIRST, and difficulty in integrating into the classroom are all working against FTC.
- With that said, we've successfully integrated VEX into most middle schools and are piloting an FTC curriculum this year at our High School. VEX comes with a classroom kit, the parts are more robust for those who are just getting started, and the manuals/forum support for VEX are out of this world. Yet FTC gives more flexibility & integration with custom materials allowed in the FTC competition. This forces students to get away from puzzle piece engineering and into more outside-the-box thinking. We tried curriculum with VEX for several years, but inability to cut the <expensive for this environment relative to their budget> VEX metal caused it to taper off.
- What Blake isn't telling you is that he was the founder of his teams and the driver of the tournament structure in our county. VEX tournaments exist in their capacity because of people like him. If you want tournament density and it doesn't exist, then either expect to put the work in or choose the program accordingly. It's much easier to start your own VRC regional tournament structure than it is to start your own FTC tournament structure.
As for FRC
If you ever have the opportunity and time to do it, I'd recommend it. It's engineering a solution to a challenge from scratch. Except for motors, every piece in the kit is simply an 'example' rather than what
must be used. It IS industry-grade engineering on some teams (superstars). The rest of us are just trying to catch up
Videos for FRC, since words can't do it justice most of the time -- this isn't a comprehensive list of superstars, just the ones I have in bookmarks at work
Team 148
Team 1114 (dominating the left side in that video
Team 254