Everybot in KOP

[Narnillian]

I remember reading that something akin to the Everybot will be included with the Kickoff Kit this year. Now, we have the option to opt-out of a Drive Base in exchange for $450 AndyMark credit. Are these the same things?

[Jen_Lawrie]

The drive base is (I believe) going to be similar to previous versions of the AM14U5 from AndyMark. That is separate from the black tote for veteran teams. The black tote will have the parts needed to build kit bot mechanisms to play Crescendo. It’ll attach to the Drive Base. You can opt out of either one or both. FIRST implied in previous blog posts that the parts needed to build the kit-bot should be things veteran teams have on hand from previous kits or that they can get ahold of locally.

I don’t think you need to opt in to either the Drive Base or the Black Tote to build the kit bot if you have, say, an AM14U5 from last year around or a good supply of spare parts. When my team built the kit chassis, we’d often opt out in order to get the voucher and reuse gears and gearboxes, just purchasing the stuff we needed from our voucher. This left us some very useful funds for additional parts.

[Narnillian]

If we opt out of the black tote but later decide we want to purchase it, will it be available?

[Jen_Lawrie]

Not the tote itself, but many of the components you’d be able to purchase individually. The REV and AndyMark voucher you’ll get in place of the Black Tote could be used towards specific parts you’d need. Buying all the individual parts in the kit would cost more than the voucher itself, but some teams may not need all the materials. If you think you’ll need a lot of stock materials for this year, you may want to opt in on the Black Tote even if you opt out of the Drive Base.

I think especially for veteran teams that are able to store parts, you may have these things on the shelf already. Here’s what was in the 2023 Black Tote as a comparison. We won’t have the 2024 contents until kickoff, but there tends to be a lot of overlap year to year.

[Narnillian]

So will the materials for Kitbot be included as part of the Drive Base or Black Tote?

[Jen_Lawrie]

The Black Tote contains the parts for building the kit bot, with the exception of the Drive Base which is separate but also needed for robot build. You might check the FRC Blog post about the KitBot here.