[TheMadCADer]

A lot of teams start their brainstorming on Day 1 diving headfirst into how they might make various components on a robot. You might make a bunch of excellent robot parts, but without a well thought out strategy that robot will inevitably be playing inefficiently.

A good guideline is to leave robot part discussion off the table for at least the first day or two. Use this time to have every single team member read every line of the rules. Then, discuss how to play the game. Keep track of every idea (sticky notes and whiteboards are great for this) because even ideas that don't work can cause someone to think of something brilliant. No side conversations for the same reason.

You should be discussing how the robot is scoring points, what you think other robots will do, and how to fit yourself into an alliance (always remember that you can't do everything yourself). Look for choke-hold strategies, though there often may not be one. Once you know what the robot needs to do, you can figure out what parts are needed to achieve that.

Also, my pet peeve: don't worry about pushing matches. If you're on offense, pushing against a defender is exactly what they want you to do. If you push, you waste your time. Time is points, so instead try to avoid or evade defenders. If you're on defense, your wheels should be perpendicular to the path of your opponent, so there should be no need to push.