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Keep it simple
I agree with Bill Beatty.
I think that the "solution" here is to keep things as simple as possible.
The robot is should be shipped directly from competition to competition.
"The robot" consists of those things that FIRST requires for any robot on the field: Light, controller, battery, etc.
Spare parts - that is, direct "functionally equivalent" replacements may be manufactured and brought to later competitions.
Gracious Professionalism and the cooperative spirit of FIRST discourage complete "re-design".
This would allow a team that just managed to get their machine running at one regional to make minor adjustments (say to prevent blowing fuses by adjusting a gear ratio) and effectively compete in a second while discouraging a complete "3 (or 6 or 9) day rebuild".
By the way, our robot literally split in half (broken weld) during the finals at the Southern California Regional last year. Due to financial restrictions, (FedEx was paying for NASA teams to ship to Nationals) we had to ship the robot directly to Florida from So. CA.. Yes, the robot chassis was cracked in half when we shipped it to Florida! We included a plate of steel in the crate and a second plate was brought with us to the competition. We had the machine shop there cut it to shape, dismantled the entire robot, attached the brace, and had everything up and running in time for our first practice session at 11 AM. Had we not been allowed to bring the brace, we would never have been able to compete in the Nationals.
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What I learned from week-1 is that once again my son has been inspired to the level that he came home after the BAE Systems Granite State FIRST Robotics Regional Competition with the biggest smile I have seen on his face for a long long time. I am truly grateful for that. - FIRST_Parent [more] 
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