the two MOST IMPORTANT qualities that any robot, or any machine period, can have are: Reliability and Consistancy...and if you want to be consistant, you must be reliable. If you don't have these qualities you will be a sitting duck...literally.
If you watched 45's Galileo matches at Nats in then you can see that reliability is key...whenever our robot worked, we won...whenever it didn't, we lost...it's that simple. If your machine is not reliable it will be a very frustrating year, especially for your drive team!
