Off Season Training

[Pavan Dave]

Does your team train in the off season for off season competitions? If so how much? Is it more relaxed than the normal season? Can you explain what/how you do anything special to prepare for off season events?

Wanted to see where teams stand for off season training.

[Dan Petrovic]

Throughout May up until Battlecry we held drive practice meetings for anyone who wanted to drive. Basically, our robot isn't a very easy robot to drive, so you were required to go to the meetings prior to a certain competition to be able to drive (or copilot whichever one you practiced on).

Since during the school year we have meetings on Fridays, we'd just go into our closet and load up our van with the robot and whatever we may need.

If there are any repairs that need to be done, they are usually minor, so small meetings are held to complete those repairs.

The off-season events are never as serious as the official season. They are more to get the younger kids trained so when they are leading the team they know what to do with the pit, drive team, alliance picking, etc.

We don't go to win, we go to have fun and get the younger kids trained for the official season. We do take some things seriously and have the drive training, but that also teaches the younger kids commitment. If you can't find the time to come to drive practice, you don't get to drive.

People seem to be impressed by the fact that we have many different people driving at one competition.

Then in October, there's River Rage and we use that one to grab onto the freshmen and really get them interested.

[Herodotus]

We don't go to win, we go to have fun and get the younger kids trained for the official season. We go to do all three. :p

We do whatever we think will make the robot better for the upcoming off season events, especially IRI. This year the main repair was getting our arm rotating again after it was broken in Atlanta, plus a few other things here and there. We are also training new drivers in preparation for IRI. Afterwards we'll probaly keep doing minor upgrades for the other off season events plus some more driver training for our new primary drive team and our back up drive team(s).

In terms of drive training it will probaly be pretty light, largely relying on the experience the the drivers will get from the off season events.