Back in 2002 (when I was a rookie freshman), one advisor designed a super awesome drive system for our robot. The unfortunate thing was that it was crab, and each system took about 20 lbs. Two systems of one chippewa motor each, and two systems with both a drill and FP motor each (only the drill ended up being used
) Anyways, it is the last day and a half of build season, and we were 20-30 lbs overweight. That year we went to three regionals. The first one, The Buckeye Regional (which I didn't attend), I heard that during half the matches our robot couldn't even move, because for weight we switched out critical components
. We still won an imagery award. The Midwest Regional, our next one, the robot had one arm and could manipulate one goal instead of 2. It was still fast enough to take one goal out of Hammond's way, and for that reason, we won one match. We were the 24th pick by the 8th seeded rookie because of our cheering! In St. Louis, we switched out 2 of the front systems (chipps) and put in machine-shop-made casters instead. We had enough weight to make "Boiler Tape" to make our robot in our own end zone.
The moral of this VERY LONG story is that it is okay to take stuff off and have a somewhat messed up robot, because you still succeed, you learn from your mistakes, and, because in the long run, we're all winners
(sorry for that Cheezy, Mr. Rogers quote at the end)