[cpernat13]

The advice people have listed on here is great! I have a few things to add as an alum of a FRC team and as a mentor.

-Engage students during the competition. Yes, you will have a few students in the pits, but you will need to make sure that the other students who are not in the pits have something to do. A great use for this is a scouting team.
-Have dedicated students who will communicate with other teams at a competition. The value of creating friends and alliances with other teams before final alliance selections is essential.
-Don't start building immediately after getting the game. Plan for at least a week about the strategy and what you want to accomplish, and then get into how are you going to accomplish it (i.e. what will your robot do).
-Make sure to bring food to a competition, and also have a rotation for those who are eating lunch. During my first year on FRC, my mentors did not factor in food at the competition. Since I was part of the pit crew and we were having robot difficulties, I (and the rest of pit crew) did not eat lunch one of the days since we spent the lunch break working on the robot. What we learned from this experience is to have 2 groups in the pit (lunch 1 and lunch 2). Send lunch 1 out of the pits right after your last match before lunch (with food you already have or a parent has as lines for food at competitions are very long) and give them 15-20 minutes to eat. Once lunch 1 returns, send out lunch 2. This system allows for people to be in the pits at all times if needed, and it also makes sure that everyone gets food for the day.
-Try to find as many sponsers as you can from a variety of fields. My team does not have many tools in our shops, but we have sponsers who will help
us out if we need something more complex done.

I hope this helps! Good luck with the build and competition season!!