[JonathanZur1836]

We meet Monday thru Thursday from 2:30 to 7:00 (later if needed), and on Sunday from 10:00 to 6:00 (we can't officially meet on Friday afternoon or Saturday because we go to a Jewish school).

In the past, we've spent the first two weeks designing & prototyping, and only started building in week 3 and just barely finish before ship/bag day. However, we've noticed that there is this period between the end of week 1 and the start of week 3 where not much happens, and we're just waiting around for ideas. What we've decided to do this time around is to get a design in the first few days and stick with it, then spend the middle 4 weeks building & troubleshooting, which theoretically leaves about a week of drive practice.

It is required that everyone on the build team be there at all meetings; the simple reason behind this is that by not attending, not only does that person not help the team, but he/she hurts the team because they don't know what's going on, and whatever they were working on grinds to a halt.

The most important piece of advice that I can offer is to always stay focused; if you notice that your team is getting a bit off track in that you are focusing on little details when some of the bigger things haven't been decided, do your best to steer the boat in the right direction (for instance, something that really hurt us this year was that we didn't decide on six or eight wheel until week two, which really delayed our CADers. Those kinds of decisions, as well as basic concept for manipulator, should be made on day one based on the game itself, team experience, and a study on past games to see what was successful).

Other than that, it really depends on the team, some teams are more compatible with certain kinds of build schedules than others. Do your best to find what works for your team, and I'm sure you'll do fine.