[Al Skierkiewicz]

I am not surprised that tapping a breaker on the table would show a momentary open circuit. But that is not a fair or scientific test. If your breaker was mounted near a hard surface and a robot maneuver would cause the breaker to crash into that surface, then I think that would be a valid test. As Dave described above, there are large capacitors in the controller to at least smooth out the voltage fluctuations supplied to the RC. We suspect that Innovation First has made an improvement on that in the new RC for this year as it appears to be less susceptible than even last year's. However there are limitations on how sensitive this can be based on your electrical design. Frequently, high current connections pass through high resistance contacts that move when subjected to shock. This movement results in noise and power interruptions to an already low power circuit. I would more suspect a bad crimp, loose connector or voltage sag caused by high current loads than a breaker.
As to the large capacitors filtering out noise from the motors... large capacitors of the type we are talking about, usually have to high an ESR to be effective at high frequencies. A more reliable filter can be made from small ceramic capacitors, RF chokes, etc. Unfortunately, FIRST has always considered the addition of capacitors to anything outside of the custom circuit board to be illegal. I have heard a report that one regional allowed this addition but have not heard anything from FIRST yet. Expect to be asked to remove it if you are inspected with it in.