FRONTIERS: Do you prefer to work alone or in a group?

	Justin begins to wiggle inside the Virginia Tech sub for a time trial.

JUSTIN: I like to come up with the idea and always check it with my team. If they don't agree with something, or they don't like something, I will definitely hear them out. I'm working at Newport News this summer where everyone worked on their own, and brought their ideas together. I think that's the most efficient way of solving a problem. I guess learning that you're wrong sometimes is a lesson that you have to learn yourself. I've done that too. I was so pigheaded on something; I wouldn't give up until after the fact.

WILL: The group setting was good initially because it got you thinking about certain ideas you maybe didn't perceive before. I do enjoy working alone. But there really are some advantages to group working. At a contest in Japan, we worked in groups of four with students from all different countries. On my team, we had a French student, a Japanese student and a Korean student. That was a lot of fun. Challenging, because of the language barriers, but it was good. With different people from different backgrounds, we really came up with a stronger concept. Diversity helps a whole lot. We got second place. We ran out of time. No time to practice and work out a couple bugs, but we still performed well.

SARAH: There are good aspects to both. Working in a group is good for coming up with different ideas. But working alone, you learn more about what you did wrong. You get to make the decisions, so you learn more sometimes by doing it alone. But I think in terms of coming up with ideas, it's more powerful when you have more people. It takes a lot of creativity.

FRONTIERS: What did you learn from participating in these contests?

JUSTIN: The biggest thing that we stress on our team without a doubt is to be prepared. Everyone on the team knows how to repair anything, what tool is what, what they need to grab, so that we are all proficient. The other big thing we need to know is how to work under water. We dedicate most of our budget to getting down to the Florida Keys and working with the submarines and getting all of our divers to work underwater as a team. We're very proud of our underwater efficiency.

Logan's sub provides just enough room for him to see, steer and pedal.

LOGAN: Everybody went about their boats from completely different perspectives. Some people came up with a brand new boat and built it. Some people had hulls and parts of boats left over from people who graduated before and had to make do. It's really interesting and educational to see what everybody comes up with. You get to see all the cool boats. Some of them go fast and some of them don't, and then you know what to do for the next race. Copy the good ideas.

You learn a lot about what not to do. I was pretty happy with our boat - we had a really controllable boat. I'd rather have it a little bit slower, and not bounce off the walls and crash.

WILL: Be very organized. Every time I get ready for a competition, I go through a checklist. I've had experiences in the past where something wasn't checked and it malfunctioned.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. That's a really big thing. Asking will get you a lot farther.

Think outside the box. Think big, and you can think of what is actually possible. This is kind of contrary, but I'd also say to try to keep it simple. The simpler the better. It doesn't have to be complex and have all these gadgets that do this and that and whatever. The simple ones usually come through.

	Sarah pilots her robot through to the next level.

SARAH: Well, about the building especially, I learned that it takes forever! You're probably going to have to end up building everything twice because you'll mess up the first time. As far as designing, the simplest ideas seem to work the best. Something really complicated might seem really neat. But generally, what's simple and what's reliable ends up working the best.

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