[The other Gabe]

The thing about being a contender is that there's really a variety of things you can do to do this. also since you're a local team I'm gonna try to use mostly PNW teams as examples

Outreach: if you want to be a Chairmans' or Engineering Inspiration team, Do lots and lots of this: 1540, Flaming Chickens always makes relatively good robots, but are really known for their outreach programs. 2980 also does a lot of this stuff.
Outreach can be hard if you're a small team or have limited money resources, so allocate well; holding robotics camps and volunteering in your community and at as many FIRST events as possible are great ways to do good things while looking good for an award.

Cool Engineering stuffs: if you can make nice CAD designs, or build a beautiful robot, it can really help you be competitive. my team, 2046, was average this year, but our awesome powder coating and our design won us 2 awards at district events, helping us to qualify for St. Louis (just barely, but whatever).

The robot: Building towards the game is a great way to be a contender. this was a year of letting lesser known teams really shine, since specialization was encouraged in finals. you could make a simple but effective robot that accomplishes the game task (like 3663, 1318, 2550, etc. from this year), or specializes (like 900, 1425, 1987, that one robot that just canburgled and dealt with noodles). in games that have defense, it becomes even easier to do well if you build a strong drivetrain, have good drivers, and can do at least OK the other parts of the game. 4060 in 2014 was the most terrifying defensive robot, able to shut down even the best of teams. my team that year had one of the fastest and strongest drivetrains, and learned very quickly that ramming into robots that didnt hold the ball very steadily was a great defensive strategy.

In the end, it's easiest to do well with a simply designed robot that is built to do what it's supposed to do. 4488 had one of the simplest robots around- it was a lift and a little claw thingie for containers- they didnt even have a collector! 4488 was also really simple in 2014; a collector and a catapult with a fast drive. 1425 in 2013 was the best feeder station robot in the world (or near so), and they just had a shooter and a little climber thing.

I just wrote a lot, I hope I didnt get off topic