The build schedule: how do you guys do it?

Every other day? If you want to keep a schedule like that, you'll need to meet every day, if not 5/7 days a week.

As for your questions:
1) We like to keep a good 25 to 30 people on the team. There may be moments when you only need 4 people, but it's better to find yourself with too many people than to find yourself understaffed when you need it.

2) Subteam breakdown:
Mechanical
-Drive train, manipulator(s)
Control
-Electrical
-Programming

It's good to have electrical and programming work together, since many of them have parts that interact with each other

3)We start building around the second week, though in the event we can get something obvious for the drivetrain, we start working on it day 1. If we get a drivebase done, we strap on Hal 2000 (our test electronics board) and start asap.

4) That depends who you have on your team. Everyone can contribute, but sometimes it's harder for some people to take an idea and create a functioning design from it. The best way (that I've seen) is to get the people who can make designs out of ideas, and teach them CAD.

5) Training. Spend as much time training as you do breathing, if not more. We have our drivers practice as much as possible, and our potential human players practice from the start. Day 1.

6) Our robot is fully functional (bugs fixed, etc.) in the beginning/middle of week 5. A robot is never "complete" .


Hope this helps! I'm glad to see you're taking charge of changing your team, and learning the best ways to do it.