[Thromgord]

There are actually a good number of things for first-year teams to do. It's easy, for example, to do the following:

Create a robot that goes under the low bar. Basically for the reasons previously mentioned.
Create a robot capable of holding doors open for others. Extremely useful if there's a Drawbridge or Sally Port that others can't weaken otherwise. It's simple and effective!
Create a robot that can score in the low goal efficiently. At the end of the day, a great robot that can shoot into the low goal beats the pants off an iffy robot that can shoot into the high goal.

If I was a rookie team, I would create a robot with the ability to very quickly push balls through the low bar and onto the other side of the field for a shooter-robot to collect and score with. It's not tremendously difficult at all, but with good organization, it could result in streamlined and efficient gameplay (and a much better chance of making it to eliminations!)