[Chris Fultz]

A few of the keys to successful Project Management are capturing / defining the requirements, agreeing the schedule, and communicating continually. And, someone has to be 'in charge' (ie project manager) and willing to push people to meet their agreed dates and technical performance.

If you define your robot requirements up front, taking 3 or 4 days to do this, then you will find it much easier to stick to a schedule. The schedule impact of making late changes to the design or capabilities is exponential to calandar time when the change is made - meaning changes in week one are easy to deal with, changes in week four are tougher to absorb.

Someone needs to be in charge to be sure the design doesn't suddenly change based on a single person's new / better idea and to make sure the team keeps progressing through the six weeks of build.