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Unread 23-01-2012, 16:12
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Tristan Lall Tristan Lall is offline
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FRC #0188 (Woburn Robotics)
 
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Re: Banebots RS-775 Case Short

Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor View Post
BaneBots is giving $30 worth of free materials to all 2,354 registered teams to use as they see fit. That's a donation of over $70k. Not small change, and I'm sure BB does even more for FIRST that is not covered in this one donation.
To be completely fair, their cost for those motors is clearly less than the retail price. Also, they can be reasonably certain that many teams will not participate in the voucher program, and that they will recoup a portion of their costs because they're in a monopoly position (because they don't disclose their supplier, which effectively limits our ability to get these motors on the open market, potentially at a better price).

I'd have a hard time believing that they do not turn a profit as a result of the FRC season. Contrast that to many of the other KOP suppliers, like Fisher-Price, which are only grudgingly in the business of selling parts to the public at all.