School/Team Relationships 2

[sanddrag]

Currently the business team consists of me and my friend. The rest of them graduated and left us with nutin'. Next year although the PR/Fundraising will be a whole separate deal, the students will be all new people having not the slightest clue as what they are to do or the importance of it. Also, most of the robot team members are graduated too so it will be like 4 students who are making the thing and know what they are doing including me. We will still hopefully have our 5 engineers but the rest of the students will be new members.

When do you have to register by and when is the actual money due? Also, kickoff is in mid January right?

Also, what do you do when a parent says that robotics takes too much time away from schoolwork and grades suffer? I'm sure FIRST Robotics doesn't matter to colleges as much as 10th grade English but I have honestly learned more by being on a FIRST team than in any standard school class. And it's hands on, real world knowledge too.

Last, I will be one of the ones heading up the team next year. I was wondering what you do to keep things rolling throughout the 6 weeks. I see the ideal plan as this:

week 1: agree on overall design in 1 day and begin perfecting design
Parts ordering.
week 2 finalize design very quickly and begin actual construction mesurements and such.
week 3 all machining/fabrication
week 4 finish machining/fabrication begin assembly
week 5 assembly
week 6 testing/fixing/lightening.

Do you request meetingly reports from each subgroup to explain their progress? I was thinking that might be a good idea to keep everyone on track.

I know this thread got a little off of the title subject but it's very informative nonetheless. Thanks for your help.