[sanddrag]

Very well said. I couldn't agree more. Yes, it is okay to have high aspirations and fail, but not repeatedly, and not without experiencing any success. Nobody cares what your robot was supposed to do if when on the field it does nothing at all, makes a fool of itself, or penalizes the alliance.

I think when team members (students or adults) have some a potentially successful plan/idea, it is wrong for them to not share it, and let the students embark on a known path to failure because "they will learn."

In my opinion, 6 weeks is not a lot of time to screw around. Teams should attempt to keep most of the learn-by-failure experiences to the time periods outside of the build season.