[Veselin Kolev]

A very good practice my team has: CAD EVERYTHING!
We seriously CAD everything, down to screws and rivets. We also apply proper weights to all the electronics, and make the electronics layout entirely in CAD. That way, we make all the parts as they are in CAD, put them together, and know they will work. Also using the weight tools in Inventor, you know the weight fairly accurately. Thus, cheeseholing is already built into the parts. So far it has worked very efficiently, we have never gotten tight on time, and the robot has always worked. This, however, requires all members of the team to be very proficient in CAD. We send some of our kids to take the Autodesk Inventor class at a local community college... but boy do they get the hang of it fast. It's a good investment.