[MrTechCenter]

-We have roughly 20 students on our team and 2 adult mentors as well as 2 college mentors.
-Immediately after kickoff, we return to our computer lab and begin reading through the rule book, but only the section about the game. While discussing each part, we ultimately decide on how we want to play the game. Then, we begin thinking of different mechanisms to achieve our goal.
-We send the entire first week prototyping different designs for things like the shooter this year, while another team works on CADDing the frame and finding places for electrical/pneumatic devices to fit before beginning to work on it.
-We end up deciding on our final robot design when all prototypes have been tested, the frame is usually done by this point (at least for the drive train) and so we decide on which prototype to use based on performance.


-We meet 5-6 times a week. On weekdays, we work from right after school (3:15) until about 6 (closer to the end of build season, that's more like 9). And on Saturdays/holidays we work from 8am to about 9pm.
-We do not build a drivable practice bot, but rather a board of bot components that our programmers use to start writing code for our actual bot (they do this when everybody else is CADDing or prototyping.
-The best thing that worked for us this year is getting EVERYBODY on the team to actively be doing SOMETHING. "You're not doing anything? I need a 1/8" hole drilled here." This makes sure that we're not wasting time and that everyone is making a contribution to the bot/team.