[rick.oliver]

First, develop your game plans, call it your strategy, which describes exactly what you want to accomplish in each phase of the game based on your analysis of the game rules (scoring options, constraints, etc.). Prioritize the strategies and elements within each strategy.

That has always been a full team exercise on teams I've been associated with. The team size has always been less than 50 and greater than 20.

Second, develop design concepts which could deliver your strategy, evaluate (this is the engineering) and define your design basis. Again, mostly a full team exercise.

At this point begin conceptual design, prototyping in groups.

You may need to redefine your strategy throughout the build process as you learn or need to compromise ... refer to your priorities.

Once your design is firm and you've locked on your machine's capabilities, begin to define your scouting needs, strengths and needs for help from an alliance partner.