[Cothron Theiss]

I think a floor intake is absolutely essential for teams that want to be successful high goal shooters. However, you've already said that Gears and climbing are your priorities, NOT high goal shooting. If you are building mechanisms to retrieve and place Gears, a climbing mechanism, a high goal shooter, and a floor intake for Fuel, you will be effectively trying to build a robot that does everything. And as we see year after year, teams that try and do everything often fail to do any of the tasks well enough to set themselves apart. I think this'll be especially true this year. Another trend that I've seen quite a bit this year is teams that come to the conclusion that Gears are worth more points than Fuel, make Gears their top priority, and then invest much more of their time, robot space, and resources into shooting high goals. The point I'm trying to make is, if you've set out to make a Gear and climbing robot, make the best Gear and climbing robot you can. Don't divest resources from your primary scoring objective to add on a tertiary or quaternary capability.

Now, if you team feels strongly that you can add on a floor intake without detracting from the performance of your primary objectives, go for it! But this is an ever-present trap in FRC, and it catches many teams every year.