1. How much is it for a first year team? (all fees and kit costs)
Kit is $900 less some deals that FIRST has, they are described above, events are $275. . Other costs to consider:
- Extra Parts -- Its not clear how this year will work on extra parts, last year we spent about $600 on parts and extra batteries.
- Travel / Lodging / Food at a distant event
- Team shirts / buttons
- Banners / Signs for your pit
- Marketing materials for sponsors
- Papers etc for parent info, trip forms, etc. (we went though a ton of paper sending stuff home)
- Programming systems -- if you don't have a laptop for code development that will add to the cost. I did programming support last year for some events, having your code locked in a desktop 100 miles away is an issue. If you are doing IFI events remember that the programming software is an additional charge.
2. How much time is required to have a full functioning robot?
Full function - you can do it in about 10 weeks, meeting once a week for 3 hours. Competitive robot, about twice that. The robot gets better the more time you work on it (Duh). Most teams have their best robot about an hour after the final match.
Your best bet is to hook up with teams in your area and have scrimmages, building the robot is easy, having the teams learn to "drive with a purpose" is hard. Driving skills need practice and they need to practice against other teams.
3. Whats the best amount of team members?
We had 4-5 students per robot, it gives everyone to have hands on time. The robot is only 18" square, with a big team it's hard to get everyone to touch it. You need 2 more drivers than the robot requires. If your robot needs 2 drivers, then you need at least 4 people on the team. As the year moves on students get schedule conflicts with band, sports, family stuff, etc. Nothing is worse than showing up not having enough drivers.
As the senior mentor, I start the year picking teams and we do the training sessions (frame, structure, motors, gears, programming, etc. ) for the first 5 weeks. Then the students can pick their teams for the next cycle of building the comp robot.
4. Where do you put sponsor logos/names on your robot?
Any place they will fit, remember that your number MUST appear, make the numbers part of the initial build requirements.
Good luck!