[Bongle]

This should keep your mechanical team happy:
1) Drive it like you stole it until it breaks*
2) Do a failure analysis, redesign/remanufacture the broken component, or put into place a procedure that will detect the failure pre-match.
3) Goto 1.

You're probably correct that many other teams are at the same spot you are, and will now be iterating their designs to make them faster, more reliable, and more effective. Simply having a robot that can do the game task won't be enough. You've got a fantastic chance to build a 6th or 7th version of your bot by ship day. That should keep your mechanical guys busy.


*"Breaks" and the associated fixes can mean many things:
1) Did the driver screw up? Maybe your control software is too confusing and needs adjustment.
2) Did the robot munch its own part? Maybe you need sensors to prevent that from happening, or you should design the part to be less likely to wreck itself
3) Did a part simply break? Time for a redesign or beefing-up of that part.
4) And of course, you can simply redefine success. Can your robot pick the ball up 10 times in a minute? Change your requirement to 15, and see what needs to be done (driver training? pickup redesign? different ball-approach tactics?) to get your effectiveness up to that level.
5) Did a normal wear component break? How easy was it to replace? Could you design the robot to have greater access to that part?
6) Was something forgotten before a test session and delayed the start of the driving? Make some checklists or maybe even have the robot software self-check that everything is present and working.
7) Are there areas of the field that your robot won't be able to pick up the ball, like corners or in the open field? You could change the pickup to make it more effective in those areas. Also, see [4].
8) Can your catcher catch a ball thrown blindly (a human could throw it backwards over their head) 100% of the time?