Brainstorming after kickoff

[bigqueue]

On the two teams I have help, we split into smaller teams of say 10 people and go off in separate directions and brainstorm. We brainstorm the entire task....from limitations and opportunities of the competition, to scoring issues and opportunities, to stratigies for defence a well as offense, to to rough designs.

We then come back together as an entire team, and each subteam presents their ideas, and final concept. The entire team discusses their ideas, questions them, and usually suggests and askes things they probably didn't think of. (and sometimes they have, and have great answers that the questioners team had not thought of)

After all that....we take a break to let everything get obsorbed in our brains, and come together (next day) and as an entire team, we try and do the same thing. (we cluster as subgroups though, like mechcanical and controls, so that we can kibitz about ideas and functions that we can provide to the robot.....to maybe take the whole thing up another level of reality.

After the team decides on a rough concept, our functional subteams go off and hone the concept with more specific design ideas. (in controls, mechanical, mfg, etc...)

We then come together regularly to provide status and keep everyone up to date on the design/build status.

I'm sure my description is a bit tough to follow....but I hope it helps.

Originally posted by colleen-t190
We were having a discussion the other day about modifying (read: improving) the way our team typically handles the brainstorming process for the initial design of their robots.

So I was wondering, what kinds of ways do your teams do brainstorming? Do you focus on mechanical designs or strategy for playing the game? Do you differentiate? Do you do it as a large group, split into smaller groups, as individuals? How long do you spend on this process? etc..

This is probably a situation where we could all learn and improve from one another's experiences about what works, what doesn't, and new things worth giving a try.