[EricH]

Originally Posted by rocketperson44

I had a fence climbing bot fall 15 feet onto a concrete surface without any serious damage.
...

In my experience, RCXs acting weird are more than likely IR issues. I have seen robots at FLL competitions do some REALLY weird things due to IR focusing cameras. As others have said, changing batteries or realoading firmware usually solves the problem

I've seen the "impact test onto concrete" before, on the team I mentored, and the RCX worked. Another team tell about the "punt test"--apparently the kid who did that was told to take the RCX out before doing that again, but the RCX survived.

Batteries and firmware--change the batteries fast, you don't need to reload the firmware.

IR: We had issues our first year with an FLL team. The program worked right sometimes but not others. Then one of the dads shut off his camera's autofocus, which used IR ranging. The robot worked much better, for some odd reason. (Also, there are LEGO remotes. Keep those hidden/unpowered.)