Rookie, Seasoned, Veteran Robots

[MysterE]

Hi all,

One of the benefits of being a teacher and a coach is that I am up at 6AM thinking about robots while I get ready to teach Social Studies. With that in mind, an interesting discussion occurred to me that I'd like to offer for discussion.

Panthrobotics is not necessarily what I'd call a veteran team. While technically we are, I'd like to think of us as seasoned. Yes we've been in a number of battles as it were, but there is still much we have to learn. I'm sure that many of us find ourselves in that same category. One way, I think, that we can judge the maturity level of a team is to determine how well they design and implement strategy in regards to their robot.

So my question for discussion:
Please discuss what you think separates a rookie robot from a seasoned robot and further a seasoned robot from a veteran robot. What makes the difference? I'd love to have both design and implementation discussed here. Many times, I think that rookies would benefit from having a specific and set goal to work towards as they begin to grow.


Thanks,
Daniel