[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

My team learned from those years. 2013 taught us what not to do -- we have aimed for simple, durable designs ever since.

2014 gave us Build Blitz Team JVN's over-the-bumper intake and 'choo-choo' catapult. We made small tweaks to those, and built them on a souped-up kit chassis. Because we converged on a design concept early, our build season objectives became (1) drive team practice, and (2) finding the robot's weaknesses. Drive it, break it, fix it, iterate. That robot played 72 matches, including a blue banner and our first trip to CMP. Pretty nice improvement vs. 2013. That trend has continued.

Since then, our team has become more confident about game analysis and setting build/practice priorities. 2016 was a break-out year for the Average Joes, but its seeds were planted in 2014 -- and we thank Build Blitz Team JVN for that.

This is what Ri3d inspiration should be. I'm glad it does work for some teams, but I know it doesn't work for everyone.