[Joseph Smith]

Originally Posted by Nemo

This year's minimum competitive concept would be a JVN style collector on a kit drive, right? And add a bit of structure to make the ball stay in and make it easy to catch a soft toss from a human player.

Did anybody actually build that robot? I didn't see a single robot without a shooter at Central Illinois.

I bet there are plenty of robots this year that are less effective than a simple 6WD + JVN collector bot. It's a shame, because that robot is well within the reach of practically any FRC team. I bet it can be made with kit of parts + $200 or less.

What can a team learn by building the minimum competitive concept, with mechanisms that they already know will work? I know there are many teams that might do better if they went for a design like this, but by trying something more complex, they're exercising design and problem solving skills that could make them more successful in the future. I believe that it's more important to work hard and get ambitious, even if it doesn't all work perfectly, then go with the basic idea that you know will work but doesn't let you get creative.