[FTC]: Are the kits enough?

[PAR_WIG1350]

Originally Posted by sprocketman92

So my engineering program is starting a FTC team this year , but we are trying to figure out how much it is going to cost and if whats in the kits is enough to build a competitive robot. If someone could give us an estimate on what their team spent on parts outside of the kit that would be awesome thanks!

The metal in the Tetrix kit is overkill, it is much to thick and the dimensions are too big. This limits the amount of stuff you can fit in the starting box. If the wall thickness was halved and the channel reduced to .75 * .75 or something like that it would be easier to work with. The work around is to make your own parts out of aluminum stock/sheet and plastic sheet (polycarbonate and ABS are both very good materials). If you can get a sponsor to donate these materials, the cost could be fairly low. Also, Matrix parts seem to be more reasonably sized, but only time will tell.

TL;DR: look for sponsors willing to donate spare materials and the added cost could be reduced or eliminated.