[Chris is me]

Pick your strategy before you do any robot design.

Find the one objective you can most easily do very well that contributes to an alliance and be the best robot you can be. The games have many tasks, but you are not alone on the field. By no means do you have to do all of them to succeed. You will be far more valuable as a master of the "wrong" game task than a terrible juggler of every game task.

Ask for help, early and often. Don't worry about "losing a competitive advantage" when doing so. We're all smart people, we've probably all thought the same things already and made the same mistakes, so learn from your peers.