[Tim Baird]

Atleast in terms of the robot design, we get everyone together in a big room, shoot out ideas (students & mentors alike) and write them on a big long Ishikawa diagram. Then we continue to add ideas until they get ridiculous and people run out of ideas, we go home and think about them, then come back the next day and start knocking off the undesirable/unrealistic/impossible ideas until we have about 4 potential mockup robots. The mockups are built over the next few days and then tested, broken, rebuilt, rethought, broken, and rebuilt again until each subteam is happy with them. They are then tested at our field/shop and then voted upon by the team.

Granted, the mentors might pull a little more weight due to years of experience because they can spot potential issues and problems in a design ahead of time. However, everyone gets a say as to what is done.