Thanks to the generousity of the K'Nex company, this session's freshmen will participate in a design module. It will be held during the soccer tournament, when the participants' teams are not actively playing in the arena.

Participants begin with several large boxes of randomly assorted K'Nex parts. Over the course of the day, they design a modification to their bot. The best design wins a prize. Mentors and runtime staff will decide whose design that is.

The modifications will not actually be attached to the bots. If they were, no one would ever get around to playing in the tournament. Because of this, and because this module is about design and prototyping (and not about proving robustness and manufacturability), it is possible that the winning design will not actually work. Clever ideas are important; design is about creativity. Out of a hundred monstrously clever ideas, ninety-nine will fail miserably. The last will change the world.

Building a SoccerBot is an exercise in making something work. The design work is done by the development team - now, it is up to the freshmen to put the pieces together and Make It Go. The K'Nex design module will let participants get wacky and creative without having to worry about things like whether the K'Nex flipper is strong enough to move the ball, if the gearbox will explode if you backdrive it, or how to wire up the system.

In the end, however, this is about mechanical engineering. Preference will be given to cool, clever, excellent designs that actually work.