[vhcook]

Don't panic. If things go horribly wrong at the competition, ask your pit neighbors for advice or help. They will do their best to help you succeed.

It may go better than you think. Even if it doesn't, no matter how the robot does, you're still going to learn a lot, and that's the point of this exercise. Don't give up.

Our rookie season, we had more robot problems than you can imagine -- six major drivetrain failures during matches, scoring mechanism design problems, and general steering problems (casters can result in a robot that drives like a broken shopping cart). We kept plugging at it and troubleshooting between matches. We didn't ask for help, but in retrospect we should have. By the end of the regional, there probably wasn't another team there that could change a broken axle as fast as us. The next year, our robot was a lot more mechanically and structurally sound. This year, it's pretty nice, and we weren't bolting on major assemblies for the first time on ship day.

Based on your analysis of your robot, I'd suggest keeping the claws in to protect them while the lift is up. If you're a punch and herd robot, you're not likely to need to use both at once. I'd also suggest adding chain tensioners to your drivetrain at the regional if you haven't since those pictures were taken, since your chains are long and look a bit loose. (That's part of what did us in as rookies.)