Quote:
Originally Posted by krisloz
I know FRC and FTC are big differences so I can't compare, so maybe you will need an engineer, but for a FTC team I suggest $2,000~$1750 including the registration fee.
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For FRC, you will want an engineer. You can compete without one, but it's not going to be easy.
You really don't want to try to apply FTC logistics/personnel to FRC. It's an order of magnitude difference. (I suggest that anybody starting an FRC team start with at least $10K and try to raise more. $6500 for rookie registration, the rest for building materials and travel to competitions. In later years, it goes more like $5500 for registration and the rest for materials and travel.)
However, that is something to consider: Maybe FRC isn't the way to go right away. It's resource-intensive and a major time hog. So you're going to want to look into multiple competitions before picking one.
FRC is probably the biggest in terms of scale of the robots and the number of teams. It's also $6K to register.
Battlebots is roughly the same size as FRC in terms of robots, and better known, but not quite as expensive or expansive. (Specifically, you want Battlebots IQ in the comparison.)
FTC, the FIRST Tech Challenge, is the midweight of FIRST's quartet. It uses both LEGO and Tetrix components.
VRC, the VEX Robotics Competition, is a slightly cheaper version of FTC, and is actually a spin-off of FTC (the parts group changed, and the original maker of the parts made a new competition).
FLL (FIRST LEGO League) is probably out of your age range on the low side. (JFLL, the extreme lightweight of the FIRST quartet of competitions, is early elementary; FLL runs from about 8-14, IIRC.)
There is also the BEST competition, but I don't know anything about that personally.