[EricH]

Originally Posted by Phyrxes

One of the things we have had success with is taking a past game that the mentors are familiar with but the students are not and complete a some aspect of the game, usually a mechanism.

Or... How about doing something that can really kick you up a notch with that? Develop a strategy for that game. Then develop a robot design (or mechanism). Look at the winning teams from that year, and their strategy. See how yours stacks up, and figure out what they saw that you didn't.

In essence, go through the first week or so of build season from the past over a meeting or two. There are really simple strategic games, and really nasty ones.