I've been itching to develop a FIRST-like bot on my own (mostly envisioning an electric go-kart I can also hook other things onto) since I graduated high school, but the biggest barrier has always been the hardware and electronics cost. I haven't done enough research but no other robot controllers seem to have the same plug-and-play ease-of-use that the FIRST platforms do.
Granted, its not like Intel is allowing me to use there metal deposition printers, but there's a lot of good stuff there. I think they know me by name at this point.
