[MrJohnston]

I'll answer this based on what I'd be willing to share - and when - to meet the needs of our team....

* I figure that, right now, I'll share very little. We have a lot of functionality decisions to finalize yet, so that it's not likely that I could be accurate anyhow. Besides, if we come up with an especially clever idea we'd rather keep it quiet until other teams are far enough into the design process to mimic it. What would I share now? It looks like our primary purpose will be to damage defenses. We've also agreed that we'll be able to acquire a boulder and have room on the bot to put stickers for our sponsors. Everything else is on the table as we need to do some rough prototyping to see what combinations of options are available.

* Around week 4, it will be too late for most/all teams to completely change their designs and actually create a strong robot. Those with that capability will likely already have something as good as our bot (or better) anyhow.... So, I'd share the general concepts of what we can do and likely share some specifics. However, I'd keep a few things under wraps - such as which defenses we can most/least effectively damage.

* We aim to win our first district event. I'm certain we can be a team captain and will be in a position to do the choosing. So, we won't have to worry much about advertising our abilities. So, we'll share, throughout, information about our general functions, yet have some things kept quiet. (We typically have multiple autonomous routines, for instance. One is our "go-to" that we anticipate using most of the time. The others will be used in specialized situations - or when we need to do something unexpected.) Most years, we have a routine or two we never use. When we've been to Champs, we've had routines we've used for the very first time in eliminations.

* After our first district event, we'll be much more open. Teams that are really competitive will have already studied the videos on what we can/cannot do. Teams that are less competitive, well, are less competitive. Sharing openly with them, will help them the following season. Of course, we might have some functions that we are still keeping quiet at this point.


* NW Champs or Worlds? It will really depend on our self-assessment on how we stack up against everybody else.....