Quote:
Originally Posted by Wing
For your argument, I'd really like to point you over to (the now defunct) team 1771. Team 1771 has always operated on a very low budget, often having to build their robots on plywood. They've also always had very few mentors and students on the team. Yet 1771 has always been a dominating force in the south, and has gotten very far in championships. In 2011, they seeded first in their division, with 6 members at the competition. Team 1771 was literally the definition of limited resources, but that didn't stop them from iterating and designing and using the time between competitions to improve. It doesn't take $50 grand to make 2 robots, it takes smart use of your resources and labor.
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You say "plywood" like it was a concession to not having money. Plywood was a choice we made every year that determined that was the best material for our design and manufacturing resources.
Additionally, the plywoods we used, baltic birch and okoume were far from inexpensive. This leads to an important point that cost of raw material, (sheet, tube, plate, whatever) is such a small expense in relation to the motors and and control system, that once you've been around for a few years and have a supply of these items, building a second robot is fairly trivial. This is especially true when the majority of the components are being cut by a sponsor.