I was given the opportunity to collaborate with a 4-person subsystem team, a part of a larger team of over 20. The goal of the competition was to move unsorted objects from point A to point B on an arena with another team and to have the items organized properly. The subsystem I worked on was the transportation unit, where our objective was to receive materials from our acquisition team and move them to the sorting unit. With extra time on our hands, we created a smaller, "blocker" unit to distract the other team and disrupt their process. A budget was introduced during this competition, posing the challenge of properly communicating between each subsystem, delegating where to prioritize funding. The project also faced a similar challenge to a previous project, where the design of each robot was heavily restricted to components from a LEGO Mindstorms kit, as well as 3D-printed and acrylic-glass parts, each determined by budget constraints. In my subsystem, I was tasked with designing a suspension system that could withstand as heavy a load as possible and transfer as much material to the sorting unit as possible within the limited time we were permitted. This process involved designing a frame that could support rear loading, as that area would hold most of the materials. The most valuable lesson learned from this experience, however, came from our failure to compete. While our transportation and sorting units functioned as intended, our acquisition team received insufficient attention, leaving the unit unable to operate reliably, preventing us from meeting the competition requirements. After realizing we couldn't compete, we sat down as a team and agreed that this outcome signifies how the success of an individual subsystem does not guarantee the success of the system as a whole. Experiencing this failure reinforced the importance of cross-team communication and early integration. I have since improved on this. In future projects, I have taken more time to understand and stay on page with the success and development of other subsystems, emphasizing that effective leadership and technical leadership require attention to the weakest link.