[Dan Petrovic]

What's necessary to be competitive is a pair of drivers that can get the job done. Whatever makes the drivers' jobs easier helps a lot, of course, but if the drivers can get the job done without the added complexity and weight of an active mechanism, then great.

To preface: we plan on specializing in controlling containers. We have plans to be able to stack totes if necessary, but that is not our primary focus. This year, we chose not to use rollers for our manipulators because the containers and totes don't run away from you if you bump them like balls or inner-tubes do from previous years. We're confident that our drivers will be able to render the biggest advantage of an active intake pointless.

I believe that a team's success this year will hinge more on driver skill and experience than any year in recent memory, so try to get your drivers plenty of practice.