Any motivation/adrenaline to be gotten working with/around friends? Are there other people in your program you suspect are behind or having trouble that you could hang with a few hours a week so you didn't feel so isolated?

I take it everyone's presentation is due the same day? I was thinking if they were sequential, you could maybe get your turn in "time" toward the end. Any favors you can call in, get others to do parts of your design change (now that you have tested it and found it wanting :-) Even a kid typing up the results might help? I remember a 20 page paper I was still writing the morning it was due and my friend was typing it as I was writing it (back in the 1960's before computers :-)

Anyway to streamline your design so it's not as "bulky"/fancy?

For me, I'd do things in parallel. I would take something I enjoy doing (reading, surfing the Web, online communities like this one, etc.) and work on the project for a bit, then do the other I enjoyed, then back to the project, then back to the other, etc. Get a bit of drafting/rest out of my race car :-)