[popnbrown]

So what tends to happen with our team (at least when I was on it) was this timeline:

-Team Captains (including Sub-Team captains) would be picked.
-Any other member already on the team or wanting to be on the team fills out an application with their contact information, what other activities they are in, and the top 3 sub-teams they want to be in.
- Based on that we sit down and sort the kids into their respective sub-teams. The activities criteria is our biggest, since a lot of students try to join as many clubs and never end up doing any work.
- After that we have our sub-team captains try to do weekly meetings during the off-season to sort of catch everyone up as to what's going on. These meetings are supposed to keep track of attendance of the team members, so we can tell who is not really on the team for the team.

This entire process eventually leads to about 60 students that are left, out of which we have about 30 consistently dedicated students, that always show up and do work. These 30 are generally the ones that travel and are allowed to travel, with exceptions.

The process works amazingly for us, since at the end of the day several kids realize that it's not at all what they want to do and/or they're not willing to put time into getting a reward (aka travelling).


As for the design, we generally have meetings in the first week and have the entire team split up and start designing different ideas. Although this slows us down a bit, since we waste a week or two without some sub-teams doing what they are responsible for. I feel that the design of the robot is one that represents the whole team. It also allows more discussion, more "devil's advocates" and in general the feeling of a team! At the end of the second week, we have a mentor's meeting, where the students show their ideas to the mentors, and we start putting together prototypes, and the sub-teams get to doing their work.