[EricH]

Originally Posted by bduddy

$20k-$30k per robot? Someone had better check those BOM's...

Actually, if I was to value a robot, with control system, at material+labor at market rates, that's a very reasonable number. I figure a Kitbot with limited other materials built by a small team in 6 weeks at about $10K. Something like some of the cooler robots at SVR? That's an easy $20K-$30K.

Some quick looking shows that just in the cRIO and the 4 Jags in a rookie kit, there is a $1700 donation/discount. (For a 4-slot cRIO--an 8-slot can easily be close to half of that $20K budget by itself.) That's half of your robot budget that you don't have to worry about. Not to mention all the other stuff you have to account for that you're allowed to not count against your BOM costs.

And then you get into labor costs. Figure the students work an average of 10 hours a week apiece, minimum wage of $8/hour, that's $80/week for 6 weeks, $480/student for the build season. You do the math for a 10-20 student team.

And don't forget the travel and the "blood, sweat, tears, oh wait how do we put a value on this" factor. And I haven't even gotten into added value for winning awards...