[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by ghandler94

-Do we want to build two robots?
-How often do we meet?
-Do we have two sessions each night, where girls can choose which they attend?
-How many days/hours do we use to strategize and design? How many to protoype? How many to build? How many to practice?

• I recommend building two robots if you have the resources to. Having a second robot to practice with after ship (err...bag) date can be a huge help in driver practice, coding (eases some of the pressures of the programmers who now don't have to code the entire bot in two days - it's nice, trust me), and other tweaks/fixes. Just remember, if you do build two robots, make sure that both of them are completely identical (or as alike as you can physically make them). Then, the software can be interchangeable between the two robots. This year, we had a little issue with mechanical difference, and it was the source of more problems than I'd like to remember. But definitely build two robots if you have the finances/member devotion/place to practice.
• Starting with kickoff, this is our schedule:
  Mon-Thurs: 6:30-9 PM
  Saturday: 8 AM - 5 PM
  Sunday: 12 PM - 4 PM
  This will continue until our last competition
• Multiple sessions? I have no idea.... We don't, but you could make it work...
• We usually don't actually start building our robot until around be beginning of week 2. The first few days (maybe sat/sun/mon) of week 1 are spent reading the rules, determining/prioritizing robot functions and stragety - the "what" our robot is supposed to do. We then spend the next few days (about tues/wed/thurs) figuring out a general "how" (how the robot will accomplish the "what") and getting a rough design started. By the beginning of week 2, we're ideally starting to build our practice bot, which will hopefully be finished around week 4.5-5. Our competition robot gets built between about weeks 3-6. Then, after ship (bag) day, we finish up our code and practice, practice, practice. This will continue until we start competing. Of course, this is all on paper, and that guy Murphy tends to get in the way of completing goals on time. But this is FRC - we just stay up later, work longer and harder, and get the job done in 6 weeks.