My only suggestion would be to remember your withholding allowance! I'm a day late but its totally legal to pop off a part of your robot (say, elevator, manipulator, whatever) and keep it out of your bag and continue to work on it, as long as when you bring it to the event it is at or under the withholding allowance. We had a season a few years ago where we only bagged a drivetrain. You can even lawyer it a bit and remove COTs parts from your assembly and then reassemble it at the event (motors or other heavy COTs parts) to cut weight.
In the past we've made
rigs/woodbots/mockups and mounted whatever we're still working on to that so we can continue. Helps if you have a practice bot but totally not needed.