[Wayne TenBrink]

Designing and building robot upgrades is one of the best aspects of the FRC experience. In the "real world", the design is never complete until the prototype has been put through the paces and you transform it into its best and final configuration.

In our first two seasons, we had the good fortune of going to two competitions. Both seasons, our robot changed significantly from Thursday of the first one to Saturday of the second. This year we are only able to do a single regional, so we are doing whatever we can to cram two regionals worth of experience into one. Following the discussions on CD helps a lot. We took up Team 288 on their invitation to use their full-size practice field (Thanks again Robo-Dawgs!) and that gave our drive team a lot more experience than they got on our limited home field. I got to check out the action in St. Louis last Saturday and came back with a few ideas. Our team is taking a field trip to watch the Detroit Regional next week Saturday. We are watching a lot of webcasts. We already have a few good ideas, and should have them up and running by the time to we take the field at the WMR. Our autonomous/hybrid will be totally different than the "as shipped" plan. Our gripper "hands" will receive a "thumb" to improve the ball speed during hurdling. I'm sure we will come up with more by the time we are done.

I guess that's an oxymoron. An FRC robot is never done!