[GeeTwo]

As I believed before, and see from above, budgets range widely. Except as indicated specifically at the end, these numbers are valid for a team located within CONUS (lower 48 states), or in southeastern Canada; outside of that range, all the dollar requirements are much higher.

I seem to recall from a social studies class that several decades ago there was an observation that poor people spent 1/3 of their income on food and 1/3 on housing, so the "poverty line" was drawn at 3x the cost of feeding a family properly. Similarly, I'd have to place the "very low resource" (aka poverty) line at 2x the regional entry fee (that is, $10,000), excluding "housing" (that is, build space), or $15k if that included build space rental. Even assuming that they're within day-trip range of a regional or two district events, a team living below this line cannot build a second robot, cannot do much in the way of off season projects, and is at the mercy of UPS and FedEx to deliver essentially every part that is not in the KoP within a useful time frame.

Moving up a bit, teams in the $10k to $20k range (over and above works space) are capable of competing in a single "drive range" regional or two "drive range" district games, and will build a bit of inventory of various parts as seasons go by. This is where we were for our first two seasons. If we had managed to win a trip to CMP (or even a division championship if we had been in a division), we probably would have had to take a pass, unless we had an angel to bankroll us through a fundraising process. Unless supplemented by some non-monetary resources (such as a machining sponsor who will do lots of work for free, or allow access to a real machine shop) I would consider these "low resource" teams.

Teams in the $20k to $30k range (again, excluding work space) have to trade off between competing in a remote (that is, hotels required) regional and building a second robot; they are unlikely to be able to do both. (Us, last year, before winning a trip to CMP.)

Teams in the $30k to $50k range (once again, excluding work space), can probably fund two of these three activities: second robot, remote regional/district event, and district champs/CMP. After winning a trip to CMP last year, we brought ourselves up to this rank.

Teams with more than $50k in regular annual income, located in CONUS or southeastern Canada, are probably able to compete as they wish. I would imagine (not having been there) that their big budget decisions resolve what shall be funded beyond the team's FRC competition.

Beyond the lower 48 and southeastern Canada, the cost of competing in a single regional, much less beyond that regional to championships, is at least an order of magnitude above the costs incurred by a CONUS/SE Canada team. Never having competed as such, I leave this as a question for others.