Chinese manufactured microcontrollers can be had for <$0.10, bought in bulk.
I used to work on an FIRST robotics team in high school; every year we had to fundraise ~$20,000 for the component cost (not labor for software or hardware) of our USA-made robot chassis. Our robots were bigger, but that really only amounted to a larger aluminum frame. And just so you know, our assembly period took around 6-8 weeks (and we didn't have to miniaturize anything).
If you insisted upon making everything here in America, I legitimately would not be surprised if you ended up with a multi-thousand dollar component bill for each model sold. The reason why China beats us is because they can mass-produce everything needed for the supply chain of these machines, and we cannot.
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Chinese manufactured microcontrollers can be had for <$0.10, bought in bulk.
I used to work on an FIRST robotics team in high school; every year we had to fundraise ~$20,000 for the component cost (not labor for software or hardware) of our USA-made robot chassis. Our robots were bigger, but that really only amounted to a larger aluminum frame. And just so you know, our assembly period took around 6-8 weeks (and we didn't have to miniaturize anything).
If you insisted upon making everything here in America, I legitimately would not be surprised if you ended up with a multi-thousand dollar component bill for each model sold. The reason why China beats us is because they can mass-produce everything needed for the supply chain of these machines, and we cannot.