[MrForbes]

Great advise so far.

Another suggestion...which Richard hinted at....maybe you should get at least part of your team to work on some generic arm, roller, ball shooter, etc designs. We are pretty sure we'll all get a useable drive base with the KOP (unless we opted out of it), but we're also pretty sure we will get nothing for the part of the robot that actually plays the game. In my experience, the part of the robot that plays the game is the part that's more challenging to design and build. And it's where most of a team's efforts should go.

As suggested about learning the math for drive base motors, gearboxes, etc. this same suggestion is very helpful for learning to design other mechanisms well.