I believe this is a hard competition. Last year our team started to embrace CAD and CNC as never before and it helped a lot in the end though too late to pull us through. This year, we went in assuming CAD and CNC was the default and it's helped a lot with our design.
We are going for a 30pt climb, 20 pt dump into the top of the pyramid, and 6pt autonomous dump in the lowest goal. We are also designing our dump system to support dumping into the lowest goal during the match as the time in the match permits. Our design is light-ish (90-95 lbs all up weight with bumpers and battery) and very fast due to gearing and weight.
I have total confidence in our design because it's not too complicated and uses super reliable components. With that said, getting it actually into CAD has proven to be a nightmare. The "precision" required in the design far exceeds anything our team has done before. This isn't due to tight tolerances but due to compound angles and strength requirements. It's easy to visualize but proven beastly difficult to get into CAD inside the dimensions of the robot. Ultimately, our entire robot will likely be CNC machined with welded gussets. It will certainly be pretty
The biggest thing that's helped us this year is one of our mentors repeatedly making sure we focus on the climbing system first and build the rest of the robot around it. The climber is large and sophisticated so everything else needs to be positioned around the climber to make things work. It makes for a very attractive design and has really helped us focus as needed. I imagine this is good advice for any team trying to build a specific-task robot.
I think I'm going to need a 12 step program to help cure me from my Cryptic Dave Lavery Chief Delphi Post Analyzation Disorder I got goin' on here. - Elgin Clock [more] 
22-01-2013, 13:39
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