Durability in FRC

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Never underestimate the price breaks of super mass production. Also, engineers spend A LOT of time just shaving off any dollar they can. For example, in 2012, over 400000 Ford F-150s were sold. So for every dollar off their BoM cost saves $400,000, well worth spending the time on. However, in FRC, price has the habit of playing second fiddle to other things like size and weight. If we REALLY tried to, I bet we could really drive down the price of an FRC robot. It's just not a priority.

You had to go pick on my product, didn't you . Companies like Ford pay a fraction of the price that a person would for most components. When they work out a contract with a supplier, the supplier is guaranteed a certain number of parts at a certain price. As a result, they can supply at a much lower cost because they know the amount of product they will sell.

Some commodities like fasteners can be an order of magnitude less expensive for a major manufacturer.

$500 robots sound nice, don't they?

They'd also be made at a rate of a thousand or two a day....