Good Reference Materials for Mechanical Design

One of the best ways to teach the team members mechanical principles is to demonstrate for them a variety of ideas and options. The goal is to have them have a hands-on time where they can learn mechanical principles. Once the team members demonstrate that they can construct the example mechanisms you should have them try to apply the principles to a new situation.

A good reference book that has many examples with instructions on how to build them is "The Lego Mindstorms EV3 Idea Book" by Yoshihito Isogawa. It is available on amazon.com.