[mayde]

Our team has a very specific approach to the planning and designing process.
In simplified terms, it looks something like this.

The day of kickoff, we come back to our school after watching the video and meet as a whole team and discuss ideas. We then split into groups of about 5 or 6 people that are predetermined by the captain (myself) and coach according to who will work well together and insuring that each team has at least one person capable of using solidworks.
During the following week, the teams each meet on whatever days they can and come up with a complete design for the robot including a strategy to accompany the shooter/scoring mechanism they've devised and use solidworks to model it. They also create a powerpoint presentation explaining the design and suggested strategy and on Friday night the entire team, all the mentors, and any parents and sponsors that are interested in attending come to a presentation where each team is introduced and reviews their proposed design.
The next Saturday morning the whole team meets again and we spend the whole day choosing which design suits our purpose the most and altering it until it's become finalized. The next week is spent on completing this design with every detail perfected.

I hope this helps. I personally like this system because is gives every student, senior and freshman alike, a chance to share their ideas with their teammates and in the long run more people feel like they've had an input on the design of the robot. [/font][/font][/font][/font]