[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

What I would add is more of the basic metal and gears at a reduced price. The cost of extra parts is the limiting factor for my team.

One of my biggest concerns is about the cost of the system. Compared to Vex it has much less parts variety, much higher cost, and the parts failure rate is higher. After three years I have a pretty good grasp on the costs. A really competitive Vex robot costs us $600-700. Our two-and-half team FTC program (we built two competitive bots and one minimally functioning robot out of three kits and a bunch of extra parts) would have cost about $3,600 if we hadn't had the returning team discount. Starting from scratch, competitive FTC robots are $1,200-1,500 each. That's way too expensive. Burning out or breaking a dozen 12-volt drive motors didn't help much, either. The Vex components, on the other hand, have been pretty reliable. After three years and a collection of about 60 Vex motors, we still haven't had to replace one, although we do have two dead Vex servos.

I'm not factoring in team registration costs, by the way. This is just hardware. An FTC program using Vex parts would be a much more affordable way to deliver a mid-sized robot STEM program, even with the $275 FIRST registration fee. IMO. YMMV.