[KenWittlief]

something our team did this year that really helped to focus our team on the important stuff.

Several weeks before the kickoff we took the FIRST transmissions left over from last year, and two spare drill motors, and we made a pratice bot using the 2x4 alum frame and 3/8" plywood for a frame.

just the two skyway wheels, a castor, the RC, fuse box and battery.

Its great for letting the students get driving pratice

but one other advantage - after we analized the game this year, we declared our practice bot (Frank) is our default bot for this year - that unless the students can think up something better, we will make another one just like it, and use that

of course we were able to think of things to make Frank better, a ball collector on the front, an arm for the 2X ball, even ideas for the chin up - but what Frank did for us was it established a baseline - for all the misc details, if you could not think of a better way, we simply copied that part from Frank - it was a starting point and helped us avoid exactly what you are doing, spending 2 hours trying to decide to put the battery this way or that way.