I'm not sure whether this counts as innovative or not, but our Brecoflex treads snapped in two during a match, so we cannibalized them and wrapped them around two of our pulleys to make some last-minute wheels. Then something very interesting happened: all of the bumps and ridges on the treads literally, over the course of a few qualifying matches, rubbed away, and we had a smooth, gum-rubbery surface. With our jaws hanging on the floor, we took out all the screws that held the treads to the pulleys and reattached new ones.
There was also a rookie team, 1866, that had come with basically a moving chassis. We had two matches coming up with them, and since all they were equipped to do was basically push balls around and climb the ramp, we decided to try and help them play defense during the match. To do this, we made two "posts" out of 80/20 and wooden dowels and attached them to each end of their robot, width-wise. Then we zip-tied on some of the spare fabric we'd had left over from our bumper supply. Their robot just about quadrupled in height.
