[Squeaky]

Well I agree that 'KISS' seems like it works the best when it comes down to winning the competitions, but what is better than seeing a robot that stands out because of some incredible design. When your robot becomes more complicated, there are more things that can go wrong, but usually the more complicated design has a purpose. My team won a design award this year at VCU because we had a 192-tooth, 24 inch diameter, sprocket that acted like a turret so that our arm could rotate 360 degrees. We made this sprocket ourself with a sheet of aluminum, a hammer and a punch, and a couple ours over the drill press. No it wasn't a simple design, but we never had one problem out of it. My favorite part about attending FIRST competitions is seeing the crazy unique designs that teams come up with, not seeing who wins.

And our 'not so simple design' helped us win the regional, so we must've done something right...