[TedG]

Originally Posted by alecmuller

Our typical method is to spend the 1st day of kickoff weekend reading the rules and then brainstorming game Strategy (i.e. what the robot needs to do, not what it looks like). For all brainstorming we break up the team into groups of 6-10 people ..
then a 3rd time for fully-integrated robots that have all the elements needed to execute the strategy.

Usually at the end of all that we're torn between 2 or 3 concepts, so we use what I think of as "sudden-death" prototyping. We split into groups that work separately on prototyping the leading concepts, and then as soon as 1 or more prototypes is ready, we meet as a whole team, review the prototypes (including whatever they have even if it's not finished) and vote to pick a concept or continue prototyping.

While prototypes can be time consuming, we find they usually settle design arguments MUCH faster than sketches and talking.

This is pretty much how our team starts the season too.
The day after kickoff, a mandatory all-day brain-storming meeting with lunch provided. We encourage everyone to watch the game release animation and review the rules ahead of time (which only half do) and go over them again at the beginning of the meeting.

And as you mention, start discussing what we want to do, what we need to do, etc. Small teams create sketches and prototypes and we reconvene. And so on, then by the end of the meeting we have action items for week one. By the end of week 1, we have a drive base (and a practice drive base hopefully) and a direction the robot is to be built, works most of the time.