Hey David,
I'm looking forward to it also. I dunno how our semi field will handle all the racing bots and bouncing balls though, heh. I look forward to seeing yours as well.
As far as speed, this will be our fastest bot to date, but I've seen other teams quoting faster speeds. I just think controllability is probably going to matter more than raw speed, if playing with the balls anyway. The guy holding it (Sean) in the picture is the driver, he's why they go so fast.

We are actually using the single speed kit transmissions

Reason is last year we had shifters but Sean didn't shift until we were on Einstien. So we never needed them...
It is 2" under in each direction, so that's not a big deal really. It just looks smaller I guess. Tytus did the cover design, and tweaked last years base. We've got a great team of helpers this year. They're all working quickly.
The arm and some other features not shown are a beatty do it all menagerie, but we'll see how it all works out in reality... It will also have a gyro and a beefed up IR doo dad. Last years bot does great with it.