[smurfgirl]

Having practice time definitely improves teams' performance - it allows the drive team to become familiar with the robot and practice working together. You don't necessarily need a full-sized practice field - you could recreate the key elements and set those up to practice - but no one is going to tell you that good practice doesn't help. Practicing with other teams is a good idea too, because then you can recreate the feel of multiple robots playing at once.