Now here lies the question. Over ten years is it cheaper to fo FRC then FVC?
The problem i see in FVC is that the registration fee does not include a kit every year like FRC. Plus the starter kit is not a whole lot and not much capable for a winning robot.
So in the end does FVC actually become cheaper then FRC in 10 years?
FVC, by far.
Most FVC events are around $200, which is less than 10% of the cost of registration for an FRC event. A top notch FVC bot takes about $1000 in parts. The size mandates on an FVC team also typically force cheaper travel, food, and lodging costs (and because most FVC events are one day, typically lodging is either shorter or not required at all). All those costs still don’t add to up the cost of even registering for FRC.
$5000 for Championships.
Also, I believe VEX teams don’t have to get a whole new control system. This means that the cost of the robot drops for them after their first year.
Does this really need to be debated? FVC is cheaper than FRC, especially when you look at money spent over 10 years. However, you must ask which is cooler, and FRC wins by a landslide. (Though the Vex robots are really nifty, you learn very little about electronics. But I digress…)
ah… depends on your definition of “cooler”! :yikes: And it also depends on what you’re looking to get out of the experience of being on a FIRST team… but I digress…
Sorry, but I don’t get how you could ever get VEX to be more expensive. If you just registered and got your FRC kit every year for 6K$, after 10 years you’ve spent $60,000.
Although your VEX numbers are high, and with VEX there’s no need to throw away the kit each year (you can reuse the parts) let’s use your numbers: 10 years x $1,825 yields $18,250.
-Up to $3500 in additional parts for the robot. Remember the FRC KOP also doesn’t include enough stuff to build a “winning robot”. Moving, but not winning. I’ll bet that every FRC team has spent additional money on parts outside of the KOP.
-$4000 for each additional regional. $5000 for championship.
-Money for transportation to regionals/championship. For some teams this could mean flying and hotel reservations…which gets costly.
My team’s budget for each year is usually around 50k. There is no way in my mind that vex could ever come close to that.
Even if we did scale back to just the purdue regional, it would still be $6000 for registration, plus whatever for other parts, and prototyping (call it another $2000). Call it 8k a year for a half-decent robot.
Vex could never come close to that. Besides, if you wanted full awesomeness, I could imagine that our budget could easily skyrocket to 70k, adding another regional, more off-season prototyping, and more toys for the programmers/electronics team.
$3000 on new tools, protyping, computers, etc
$6000 on FRC registration, Philly Regional, and KOP
$3500 on additional parts for the robot (max, but we are getting close)
$5000 on Championship registration
Approximations for the future (but still this season):
$2000 for flight and hotel reservations for the Championship
$1000 for food
$2000 for off-season events, etc
So right now for this complete season (off-season to kickoff to build to competition to off-season), we will spend a projected $22,500. So far we spent about $17,500.