[Travis Covington]

Originally Posted by dez250

One major thing i would reccommend is take a past robot and strip it of its electrical components (wires, victors, spikes, cables, etc...) and after training the students in learning how to wire it, give them a box of the removed parts (or new parts if you have ample supplies) and ask them to try to wire as much as they can (with or with out your help).

Never!!! Those of you who know me understand where I am coming from...

But I DO have to agree with this point. Re-wiring the robot, or possibly better, starting from scratch with just some motors on a board and wiring that up completely, loading the program, and admiring your work is a HUGE help later on down the road during the 6 week build period. The students will really enjoy building something from scratch... especially the elctrical stuff, because once the program is loaded, it will actually work remotely without having to touch the wires of the motors to the battery terminals! (yeah, we do that too! shhhh!)

Training members before the 6 week build period is probably the single most important thing ANY team can do.