[A. Leese]

For us, the brainstorming is simple.
The first brainstorming is just after the game is annouced. That's a rather disorganized session. People have millions of ideas in their heads, many of which are really strange but all are listed to. The most important ideas are written down. That session is mainly whoever talks the loudest gets heard.
The second session is the day after kickoff. Everyone's had a day to calm down about the new game. We meet and have a more organized session. We all talk together and agree on what exactly we want the robot to do. Not necessarily how to do it but what we want it to do. Everyone really gets involved with that, even people like myself who have no idea how to make things work.
Sessions after that are run by the engineers who will ask students with ideas to present CAD drawings to the group (or occassionally drawings on our little wipe-off board in the pit). Everyone helps to criticize all of the ideas that come to light (mainly the students ones are pulled apart more, mainly b/c most of us don't know the calc to do the proper calculations).
One thing is always true. The engineers must always listen to students and be willing to answer questions. Most kids have no clue how things work on these bots, and engineers just saying to them "oh..it works..don't worry" just doesn't cut it.
I guess that's it.
~Angela who honestly hadn't planned to write that much.