[Joshua May]

Have them work through many of the different tutorials that come with 3DSMax. I self-taught myself during the build period our rookie year, and produced a not-to-shabby animation after just having completed the tutorials and fooling around with the software for a while. Once their done with some of the tutorials, I'd start giving them parts and have them model them. Start off with the simple things, then as they are more successful move on the the more intricate and difficult parts. Then have them move one to animating them.