For a bit of context, as our team’s fundraising lead for this year, I’ve put in a crap ton of work to get our major fundraisers finished and sponsorships secured, and our team is looking to be in a very good situation financially compared to previous years. Last year, we were able to seed 1st at the Miami Valley Regional with a robot that ran us about 14k in new parts, electronics, and various other tools(Phoenix Pro, etc.). With the release of a lot of new shiny electronics last Friday, I’ve been wondering how these extra funds should be best utilized to build a better robot in season.
I know that this question is pretty broad and has a different answer based on individual teams’ situations, but generally, what do most top teams spend their money on to give themselves an edge at competitions? Do they go for the newest electronics, or do they buy a ton of spare parts to make themselves as fixable as possible at competition? What should teams prioritize spending on in order to “upgrade” their robots(new fancy motors? Overstocking materials to be more ready for kickoff?)
Of course, the design and construction of a robot is much more important than the materials used to build for most teams, but in essence, I want to ask what teams have spent an extra couple thousand on that’s had a noticeable impact for them at competition. Thanks in advance to everyone who responds!
Beyond a certain amount, funding does not correlate to a robot’s performance. After purchasing swerve modules, brushless motors and other electronics, and the physical material to build a robot (tubes, shafts, belts, pulleys, chain, sprockets, sheet stock/plates from fabworks) the rest isn’t really funding dependent imo.
This all assumes that you have the proper tools to build a robot to begin with which is a separate topic.
In regards to what to what to buy right now, I would prepare for the season by buying enough 1x2, 1/2" hex, and belts to build a prototyping robot if you don’t already have the materials on hand, assuming you have the manpower to execute one. I would also think about whether you want to invest money into new electronics versus just using old components.
The question I always ask myself is “how does this purchase turn into on field performance?”. Essentially, how does purchasing this item get us more RPs/Points/Wins
Drive train is very easy to spend on as it is one of the most reusable and direct improvements you can make ahead of time.
Anything training related is always also a good bet (off season builds, extra crimps for practice, ect)
From there, consistency is where my mind goes. Will any new electronics make your robot more consistent and less likely to die on field? (I know Neo 550s have a lot of issues minion may be a good emplacement potentially)
Then my mind goes to luxuries like weight saving, form factor, and so on.
Can not agree with more. Today I want to share some interesting insight.
5516 is a team held within a private school in Shenzhen and parents contrubuted a lot of the funding. Because of the demographics of students’ family, for years we are financially healthy. While I don’t have the exact number we could build two robot each year using pretty much most of the high end compoments (all kraken, swerve, 5 camera on robot, etc), fly all the way from China to an international regional, hold a FTC team (19581) and have a dedicated area at our school with a full practice field and major machining equipment. Our preformance is far from top notch.
When money is less of a problem, the motivation of the students can play a critical role. Unfortunately there are some students within our team that are less divoted than our exception. As our school is a full boarding school with thght restriction regard electronic device use (student could get into serious trouble up to expell from school for using cellphone or computer within school under extreme circumstance), some of our team member use our team as an advantage point for playing computer games. As a result there are a lot of distraction and not everyone is as motvated.
One of the other problem for our team members is English barrier. While we are an international school, none of the students are English native speaker and most of them are pursuit to learn English to pass assessment for university admission (IELTS or TOEFL). However, the amount of student that are not competent in English is huge in our team. Something very simple like reading the document or visiting CD might not be doable for many of our student. In the competition only some students are able to talk to judges or other teams because not all students travel with us had enough English skill to be able to communicate. Actually if you read my post, you would feel the grammar sometimes are very weird because I am not a native speaker.
So yeah. Honest speaking, we are not poor. In fact, we had a lot of money, we are an aristocratic school by many standard yet our robot performance and our team performance were not always among the best.
I feel like investing in team infrastructure is a good way to increase robot quality and performance. Having the right tools, machines and materials at the ready will definitely affect how well you can get a robot up and running.
It also means that you need students to have the skills to use said tools and machines, so maybe spending some money on some kind of training materials, or potentially hiring a mentor to come in and teach machining and design skills etc etc.
I would definitely recommend getting tools/machinery over parts. A 3d printer, a laser cutter and, a CNC machine, are probably my three recommendations.
100% agree with this. Our team is going into its fourth year, and our biggest jump was from 2 to 3 when we were able to purchase a laser cutter and an Omio CNC. The laser makes prototyping 10 times faster, and being able to make custom parts with precision in-house is a massive upgrade over hand tools.
I’d say the correlation is fairly strong. Beyond actually defying the laws of physics most engineering problems can be solved with the application of enough time (not happenin’ in FRC) or money. Outsource complex parts, pay rush shipping charges, coaches with actual paychecks, etc. Situations where lots of money does not match up with lots of ancillary support, or where scrappy low budget teams Rule, do happen but are the exceptions. A long conversation could ensue about the direction of FIRST, but has been covered elsewhere.
Beyond tooling and parts I think there is another component that makes higher performance. Teams that are able to raise more money are often more organized teams, meeting more often, doing more activities, building more teamwork and trust, and probably doing summer build projects. Not always true but a possible factor.
If I were to plot budget vs. competitive performance, I would assume gradually diminishing returns, but with something of a spike at the high end for teams that can hire and pay coaches/mentors with deep FRC experience.
If you’re already spending $14K on a robot and seeding first at a regional, I’m assuming you’ve taken care of all of the low hanging fruit and are in the realm of diminishing returns. I’m assuming you’re not lacking in machines nor COTS parts at this point.
The one thing every team has an equal amount of is time. When you have a lot of excess money in FRC, finding ways to buy back more time is the way to go.
What you and everybody needs to remember that its a process.
Money is a kickstart to buying brand new parts that minimize any random pushbacks.
Money can you give you freedom to invest in stuff that lasts more than one season and will always have use. It can be anything from a new Carpet, to brushless motors.
Furthermore I would suggest to use the money to expirament with new designs, new machinery, or for a B robot during the season. Many successful teams would know that having a backup robot ment for expiraments, working on auton while the main robot is in practice with the drive team and more.
Thanks for all the insight everyone! I’ve gathered at this point that our team is in a position where extra robot funding can get us marginal performance increases via faster building/shipping and niche methods(for example switching to 4AWG wire from our batteries, which our coach had us do in the summer).
One slightly more specific question-for any teams that build alpha robots in season(eyeing 1678 and 6328 but I’m sure there are others), would you recommend spending on a basic concept robot like that in season, or save that for an offseason build after champs?
Yup take some of that money and get some parts, Take some more of that money and get one of those low hanging bigger ticket good tools (e.g router), if you are allowed put the rest into a rainy day fund, or into subtle upgrades and quality of life improvements.
Competativeness is the result of a minimal amount of capabilities and parts and mostly time and experience. The lawn chair bots in the 2014 season is an all-to-real example of this.
I volunteer to be part of the study that works out the exact parameters of said diminishing returns. I can think of all sorts of options, some serious some not. Gotta go re-read the new bumper rules to see if stacks of 100 dollar bills could substitute for pool noodles…
Last August our team 1189 started a non profit to support the team. Being in Michigan getting the state of michigan department of education grant and having GM as a sponsor to pay all our entry fee’s the team has had a very stable financial picture.
Last season funding was such that money largely was not a constraint on the team. That meant preseason we could order an entirely new set of fresh batteries, new motors etc. When the season started we ordered more than a full field set of notes instantly. Our climber was a bistable composite tape spring, it was a new novel mechanism for us and we could try it out because we knew we could afford as a backup to use a more conventional climber.
Once you’ve gotten the basics and gotten the “table stakes” items like swerve drive and machine tools etc. money during build season is time and the freedom to experiment. Money means when you need something you order it right away, can pay for faster shipping, and you can buy backups or if your debating A vs. B you buy both and see what works.
The other big thing is travel. Our team has been to worlds three times, the last two years back to back. Money at worlds ALSO meant we could bring 20+ kids without breaking the bank. Two years ago we got last minute airline tickets at $1200 a person so the whole trip cost $2,000 per kid. Last year we could write a check to get an entire bus which drove down costs and subsidizing travel such that it cost $750 per person which really helped us on having manpower to scout.
Deal is that chairs were a semi-common method of getting more points. Strap a chair to a drivetrain, human drops ball into chair, robot shoves ball to next robot, adds points whenever ball is scored.
This reminds me of a little project that predates the formation of our FRC team. After school robotics program, middle school level. We found some old desk/chair combos and added motors, electronics, bling lights. We got two up and running and had a Grand Prix race (no passengers on the things) through the hallways. The principle waved the checkered flag. A drone followed the racers around and took aerial photos. Ah, good times. A year later some of those kids, now in high school, came to us and said; “Lets do FRC…how hard can it actually be?”
