I am the captain of a rookie FRC team, and I am curious about how much our robot cost excluding the electronic components during the season. Do you have any recommendations on how to estimate the budget for this? How should we approach budget planning for these expenses?
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Please note that this poster is from TĂĽrkiye. US budget estimates may not apply.
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As a rookie, you have a few options to build a robot cheaply. The simplest is to build the kitbot, which you will get almost all the supplies for in your kit of parts.
The next step up from that is the everybot, which has a budget of $1500. Last year, the everybot was just a few improvements on the kitbot, but in previous years its been a pretty powerful contender (2018, 2019, 2023). Other years, its been somewhat lackluster in my opinion (2022).
A further step from there would be a vendorbot such as the REVrybot or the WCP competitive concept. These will probably run you a couple thousand dollars. The advantage here is that you save on R&D costs; you’ll only spend money on things that have already been tested and work.
For a fully-fledged robot, 7525 tries to budget $10k. This cost comes down over time as you accumulate motors, swerve modules, compliant wheels, etc. If you’re significantly budget-limited, I wouldn’t pursue this in your rookie year.
As a Turkish team, I’ll add a few caveats. Importing FRC commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts will be slow and expensive. You can get around the “slow” part by buying kitbot parts in advance (shopping list here). If you decide you don’t want to build this (and I recommend you do, especially if your team doesn’t have FRC experience), you may need to get creative with locally-sourced materials. Instead of compliant wheels, use polycarb tube. 3D print parts as much as you can. Use local sprockets instead of FRC ones. That sort of thing. @AlexBurchard would have a better idea for Turkish-specific advice in this arena.
Good luck!
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Thank you so much for your detailed advice!
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