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I did a fair amount of high-school and college robotic competitions (The college experience focused on autonomous underwater vehicles at AUV-AUVSI competitions)
by horsawlarway 4y ago
I did a fair amount of high-school and college robotic competitions (The college experience focused on autonomous underwater vehicles at AUV-AUVSI competitions).
It's a very cool way to get hands on experience across a wide number of technical disciplines.
I found the write-up was good, I especially loved the focus on what went wrong and the last minute fixes (They're unavoidable at competitions like this - nothing like rebuilding critical parts at midnight, or scrambling to fix a bug in the 20 minutes you have between runs).
That said - I'd really have liked a cost breakdown of this bot. Just eye-balling some of the components here, I'm guessing we're around 10k, but it can vary a ton, and I'm about a decade out on pricing.
Some of the teams at the competitions I participated in went in with budgets in the low hundreds of thousands (University of Central Florida pretty consistently spent ~75k a year on their hardware, not counting travel or other expenses) and some went in with complete shoe-string budgets in the 5k range.
I'd love to get an idea of what budget was planned for this, what ended up being more expensive, and what ended up being less.
- lxrobotics 4y agoYour guess is pretty much on point: Total BOM was around 16k€. A not insubstantial amount (for me) and entirely financed out of my own pocket - 107-systems is a private team staffed with volunteers financed by donations. I'd preferred to stay below 10k but at the end it was do or die ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . Since you write of having participated at such events I suppose you understand ;) The most expensive parts were the miniature hydraulics as well as the custom CNC milled parts, which were created using a service for the manufacturing of custom front panels (a plate is a plate). But also all the small parts start to add up: cables, connectors, batteries, power distributors, ...
- jsjohnst 4y ago> The most expensive parts were the miniature hydraulics as well as the custom CNC milled parts Had you considered using laser cut parts from a place like SendCutSend? Conservatively guessing approximately $300 in cut parts if using 6061 aluminum.
- acyou 4y agoIncluding the coating, deburring, secondary machining, and German cost of living and materials, I imagine the price of the plate set must have been more. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to mill these, they should really water jet or laser. Does SendCutSend have a water jet? Do they ship overseas? What would the air freight cost on that large package? Those machined shafts would have been expensive. Nice to get them for free.
- fho 4y ago> Do they ship overseas? No they don't. Just the US and Canada. I checked out Xometry for a similar service in Europe yesterday.
- jsjohnst 4y ago> Does SendCutSend have a water jet? From their homepage: Laser Cutting, CNC Routing, Waterjet Cutting, Anodizing, CNC Bending, Countersinking, Hardware, Powder Coating, Plating, Tapping, Deburring > Do they ship overseas? Also literally answered on their homepage. > What would the air freight cost on that large package? What large package?
- horsawlarway 4y ago> But also all the small parts start to add up: cables, connectors, batteries, power distributors, ... This sure is the truth... I am painfully familiar with realizing I've spent another grand at McMaster-Carr by the end of the month with a series of small purchases, each under 50 bucks individually. The big ticket items tend to be expensive, but expensive once. It's all the nickel and dime purchases in between that can really hurt.
- DaveExeter 4y agoMcMaster-Carr is for when you are spending other people's money. Aliexpress, or Amazon, if you are spending your own money.