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Originally Posted by Joe Johnson
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Can I build a competitive robot for $1,500 plus the KOPs?
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Yes, (assuming you have the assets you listed), but it will be difficult. If at all possible, try to double that. Doubling it will allow for the possibility of 2 different successful strategies.
1. Build 2 simple yet relatively effective robots and use the one for practice, development, and more practice.
2. Build a more complicated robot that uses a lot of good COTS parts (that aren't cheap) and thus free up development time on game piece manipulators, collectors, or whatever other custom stuff is needed. This will also allow you to "waste" some funds on things you don't "need". "Waste" would be defined as ordering the $50-250 dollars worth of stuff that you think you need, but by the end of build find you are not using. This buffer reduces the budget stresses that can drive a team lead crazy.
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This season I had the pleasure of watching the OCCRA (Oakland county Competitive Robotics Association) Championship. OCCRA has pretty strict student build and tool usage limitations that require teams to keep it relatively simple to construct. Robots are about 2ft x 3ft x 3ft, so just a bit smaller than FIRST. Of the 20 teams, there are only a couple that I would estiamte would have broken $1500. Because the teams get to keep working on their robot, the "path" they follow tends to be more like path #1 from above. The game was a lot like FRC2005 (Triple Play), but used balls instead of Tetras. By the end of the season. Almost every team could score, and over 1/2 of teh field could score 4+ game pieces. In a pick and place game, having this capability will put you in the top 25% or better which should make you a captain or first round pick at most regionals. The OCCRA teams get there by having more development time and more practice driving than FRC teams get. Similar behaviours occur in VEX where students have more time to test/tune/tweak. The practice bot, or doing multiple events does this in FRC.
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If you want to make it to Einstein, then I would listen to Peter from 177. They seem to have the approach down.