[mrnoble]

1) Our team's first reaction was: this will win matches. We figured that, for the first time in at least our 10-year experience, a non-driving, single purpose robot would be a serious contender. We began planning.
2) After a number of failed proofs of concept, we questioned our premise. We split our team in two and began building a climber and a traditional FIRST floor-driving bot separately. The potential problems made it not worth the risk to put all our hopes in a climber. It also was becoming apparent that scoring with discs could potentially outscore even the best dedicated climbers by a large margin.
3) We discontinued the climber in week 4 due to the foreseen and unforeseen complications. We added a passive 10-point-hang on the shooter and felt we had reached our perfect balance.