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Re: Team in Danger!
Three things:
1. Definately build a robot this year and goto at least one regional. You cannot under-estimate the importance of the official events on the moral of your team, and the life of your team (future funding).
2. Make everything as simple as possible. Design a base model robot (FIRST drive train and frame) with the simplist attachments and features you can come up with. If it moves and it passes the inspection, then you have succeeded. If you get over ambitious and your team shows up with a non-functional robot then team moral will take a huge hit.
3. If you dont have funds to send your whole team to the nearest regional then you only 'need' to have 5 people there: the 4 on-field players and one adult mentor. Two hotel rooms and a borrowed mini van are very inexpensive.
In other words, set your goal as the bare essentials / minimum requirements for all aspects of your team. Then if you can do better than that, and have 10 people attend the regional instead of only five, or you add some additional subsystems to your robot, then your team has done better than expected.
A survival mode mindset will get you through this year.
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