[LightWaves1636]

1. Discuss the game.-Go over manual
2. Together in discussion, students decide what kind of bot we want(usually it's the veteran seniors who pick because by the time it's senior year, all we do is talk on IM, text messages, and e-mail and the next day we report back to our coach and say exactly what we want.).
3. Eventually the group falls to 4 or 5 people(usually senior veterans) on what the actual bot will look like and discuss why. - We do not start anything on the robot until the students come up with an all student designed robot. One of our engineer mentors came up with something for us but we didn't like it because the robot wouldn't really be ours.
4. No autoCAD(yeah i know) of entire bot, only time we use AutoCAD is to make protoypes with our laser. Nor do we go to a Machine Shop, completely backyard mechanics-measured and fabricated by the hands of the students.

whatever we design, we make sure we K.I.S.S. it(It's "Keep it simple stupid", but we say "Keep It Simple Smart".-Judges liked it a lot at Colorado Regional).