We usually have the entire team show up to watch the event via NASA TV streamed from one of the computers to the TV up front. Two or three mentors head out to RIT to pick up the KOP. Our rookie year we all went out to RIT as an entire team but after that first year we realized what a pain it was to bring everyone out there - and that was back when we had only like 10 students on the team. This year we had over 40 students, so and at least a dozen mentors.
But yes, we watch the entire event. As soon as it's over we begin brainstorming. We usually split off into smaller more manageable groups and just come up with ideas. We don't do anything mechanical or in detail yet. Just spit out anything we feel is relevant to strategy, design, intent, etc. We have hundreds of ideas that end being written down. Again, this is about as general as it gets. They then get whittled down and separated into the proper categories. The first week or so we spend coming up with the actual mechanical ideas of what of our robot should be doing as well as the strategy. Those two go hand in hand and I would say everyone would agree with that aspect. Can't have a strategy that doesn't fit your robot. "Is it worth giving up high-scoring for triple-balancing?" "Even if we did, is it worth having to rely on having the proper alliance partners to do a triple balance? That would be a problem during qualification rounds." "Do we get a shooter that can hit the 3's and 2's or just go for a pure dumper and consistently and always hit the 2's?" Those were just a small smattering of questions we were discussing during the first week to try and pick the direction our strategy and robot would go in.
After the second week or so we are (for the most part) locked into a particular design. We actually had a design all drawn up, built and even assembled on the base of the robot that would allow us to just glide right over dividing bar. That actually had to be removed as we were a good 10lbs or so overweight and (again) in a strategy session we had to decide what was the least important device we had on the robot - and that device was the one that got axed. This happened around week 4, far later than what we usually modify designs with but lucky because it's compartmentalized nature, it didn't affect how the rest of the base was built (The rookie CAD student who basically designed that thing from scratch was heartbroken though...
). So although we usually lock the mechanical design by week 2-3, this was an exception that had to be taken care of.
The best laid plans...
Edit: I'm sorry, I forgot to answer the last 3 of your questions.
- We usually work 6 days a week. From when school gets out around 2:30 to usually around 6pm. We then come in on Saturdays from 8am to 5-6pm. That's during the first 4 week so. The last 2 weeks can last as long as 8 to sometimes even 9pm. I remember our rookie year a couple of the students actually slept over at the high school in the TV announcement room the last day. Worked till about midnight on friday night, slept back there on the only portion of the tech wing with a rug and then got up and worked from 6am to about 9pm. Luckily we've never had to do that again.
- We do not build a practice robot. We never have and although I'm sure it would help the programming and drive team immensely, we just don't have the time or the resources. As you can see we work nearly all week along and we can still barely meet the time constraints. This year though was probably our personal best as far as the amount of time the programming team got the robot to the themselves. Almost a whole week..
- If you have the man-power for it, design everything up ahead of time before its built. From what I've seen of the CAD organization thread on the other board, this is one of the most difficult things to do because of the 6-week time constraint. You need a good amount of students and they need to be veterans of the field but if you can do it, it is a life-saver. My senior year had 4 drafting students (the most we've ever had at a single time) all with anywhere between 3-4 years of experience each and for the first (and only) time we managed to be able to model up and design stuff in Inventor first, before it was built. It saved so much time having to check everything for necessary space requirements, weight issues, whether the arm and the lead screw had the necessary room to extend, whether the arc it created would clear the bumpers, etc, etc, etc. It provided us with an insight in the operations of the robot we just haven't had since. All 4 of us were all seniors and we weren't able to teach anyone else before we graduated. The team next year, though they made an awesome robot, were essentially flying blind and having to do everything by hand first. And when our CAD team finally got the necessary experience to once again produce the 3D Assembly model, it just didn't have the man-power. And the past 2 years since I started as the mentor, we either haven't had enough experience or enough man-power to once again do what we did my senior year. If we did, that weight issue I spoke about above, wouldn't have become a problem.