[mathking]

I think the most important thing to do is to manage all of the tasks well. If the programming team will need the robot on Tuesday evening, don't schedule the drive train team to work on it then. That sort of thing. The past few years we have dramatically improved our project management. Having a large team with a lot of component teams, this is important. So we have a board with the tasks for each team on note cards posted on the board. Tasks that will require the robot (either our prototype/practice robot or the competition one) are clearly marked as such. We start and end every meeting there, so we can report on progress and make sure we know what each group needs to do for the next meeting. Each evening the student team leader for each group signs the back of the card with a note as to what was done. When a task is completed it is moved to the back board timeline.

It is hard to set firm timelines at the start of the season, because you spend most of the first week figuring out exactly what components you will need. We have a timeline in back with all of the FIRST deadlines on it, a current day marker and our target dates from completion of tasks. I think that meeting as a team at the start and end, while occasionally a bit tedious, has really helped us stay on track with build. I don't find kick-off day that filled with activity actually. We verify the KOP inventory and make sure that everyone understands the game well. We try to give people a day or two to think about the game then before diving into brainstorming. Otherwise the veteran team members tend to dominate the discussion and we end up being pushed toward solutions we have used in the past. There is nothing wrong with that, but a little more time to think before we start throwing out ideas has been helpful for our team. Our biggest schedule problem the last couple of years has been helping to host an FLL second level event (between initial competitions and the state championship) on the Saturday after kickoff.