Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
One of my biggest complaints 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 loaded with omni wheels, sliding rails and all those other "limiting" parts 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. 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.
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I'm going to have to disagree with this one. We used the base kit plus about 150 dollars worth of parts and had a very competitive robot, seeding third and placing second at our tournament.
We burnt out exactly one motor, then we got smarter and didn't burn any more. The only part that I would say is absolutely necessary to buy in addition to the base kit is an extra motor controller.