Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

So now that is has been awhile since worlds ended i was wondering what stuck out to everybody the most drivers/driving. What were some things that could be improved or some good things that worked well.

The most important thing i noticed was during the finals at Milwaukee. All three teams in our alliance did very well together. I believe that this was due to the act that before hand we all got together talked things through and had a very good plan that we stuck to. Communication between drive teams is critical.

I for one have also realized that one muffin a few slices of pizza and unlimited supplies of Mountain Dew is not a very good diet.:o :rolleyes:

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

I saw a lot more communication between human players and drivers this year then the two last ones... This helped a lot, in my opinion...

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

Human Playing this year was much more difficult and required communication than the past two years. There wasn't much to communicate in 2013/14, but this year it made sense because of how stacking works.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

Very true :)

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

The key difference between the previous year's driving and other years of driving was primarily the style of play that was necessary. One of the most important things that Recycle Rush required was to be careful (if you didn't have something to stabilize the totes you were holding).
Our driver ended up using a control system that reflected that, one joystick for magnitude and another for direction. This ended up working well for us, overall.

Something that we originally had on the robot, but later took off was an option for field-centric driving. We ended up not using this because we discovered that it was hard to line up with the chute door using those controls.

Another thing I personally discovered was that the queuing line at Worlds is about a mile from the practice fields...

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

We should have used that control system... Its true that you get more precision then simple tank control... :)

(We got our human player run all the mile to our pit twice because one of our motor controller was dead :) )

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

2015 Recycle Rush, more than any other recent game, called for cool-headed drivers. Despite the name of the game, rushing was the last thing you wanted the driver to do. Yes, move quickly and surely, but never get in a rush! Most years, taking a bit of a gamble of speed over consistency might pay off in the long run; probably not in 2015.

The only time I can think that driver aggression helped us this year was in driver tryouts. We learned that yes, our stabilizer bar could be used to flip totes (actually roll them 90 degrees at a time) when used aggressively. It didn't work when done methodically. After a bit of noggin-scratching, we added some rubber tape to the bottom of the bar so we could flip totes in a more controlled fashion. We probably wouldn't have thought the problem through if we hadn't seen it work sometimes.

In 2014 Aerial Assist, communication (apart from hand signals) was only feasible with the HP behind the alliance wall, in any event. For the field-side HPs, there was only one ball to keep an eye on, so the HP could just follow the robots' (that is, the drivers') lead in most situations, and look to the drive coach for a hand signal when necessary.

In 2013 Ultimate Ascent, the HPs were behind the wall, but I imagine that loading stations and altitudes were all known before each match. The main thing that needed communication to the HPs were when to feed the colored frisbees, and when to start the HP frisbee launch. I imagine that some HPs had to guide their drivers in to the loading station, especially if their robot did not have an on board camera feeding back to the driver station.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

This is definately a result of the possibility to descore this season that was not present in the past. It was often more worth it to sit still for the last 10-15 seconds, especially when visibility was lowered because of the number of stacks. Trying to get an extra tote or 2 out at the last second wasn't worth the risk of knocking down multiple stacks.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

This was definitely rue in some of the earlier qualification matches. But in the finals i didn't see nearly so much of it.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

In addition. I feel like the virtual field space this years was smaller than many recent games. Many more game pieces that were fairly large by frc standards, paired with scoring ramps and no horizontal limit restrictions for robots resulted in a field that compared to other years felt, well... cramped.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

"I for one have also realized that one muffin a few slices of pizza and unlimited supplies of Mountain Dew is not a very good diet"

I disagree hahaha. I believe the one thing that stuck out the most was not only staying level headed but making sure the robotics truly mix together.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

Driving this year really worked out well for individuals able to bash their heads into a wall repeatedly, through multiple competitions, and still do the same thing over and over. It was honestly a terrible year to be on a drive team, definitely the worst out of 2012-2015. The highs of finals at events were overshadowed by the incredible tedium required to get there in 2015. The atmosphere was much more reserved ( or loud, depending on your drive coach) this year, indicative of the pressure driveteams felt to perform without mistakes each match.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

definitely the most stressful year to drive...

let's just say i won the last 2 matches in Montreal less than a second from the end buzzer :yikes:

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

It was certainly a much harder year to drive than last year. Last year you might get the ball 3 or 4 times and those were really the only times you could make a really bad mistake. But this year every tote had the the potential to lose you the match. It was certainly the most stressed I have ever been.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

For the most part, I agree. But depening on your robot and team played the game in 2013/2014, human playering may have required similar amounts of communication.
2013- robots that needed precise alignment with the feeder and exclusive floor pickups that were cycling required similar communication (when 20 would cycle, we'd often pick up 1-3 stray discs off the floor, then communicate to our human player to drop 1-3 more on the floor. We didn't want to drop extra discs because opponent floor pickups could pick them up.
2014- teams with flexible strategies required really good communication with their far side human players, really smart human players, or both. (10 seconds left in the match, do I throw the ball into my team's robot or the designated finisher's robot, do I inbound the ball now when my team is being t-boned or wait until they get a better angle)

The difference, I think, is that almost every team in 2015 needed to have good drive-HP communication, while in 2013 and 2014 it was only really required for a smaller subset of teams, usually teams at higher levels of play.

As for driving between the seasons- they were very different.
2015 required extreme care. Calm, cool, and collected drivers who knew exactly what the robot was capable of were necessary.
2014 required much more aggressive drivers, depending on the robot. The drivers needed to be able to understand the robot's capability and evaluate risks when driving.
2013 depended on what robot you had, again. Most drivers just needed to be agile enough to juke defenders out, then careful lining up their shots. Full court shooters generally needed to be careful and get into position, because they were often top-heavy and only needed to get there once, while floor collectors needed to move a bit slower and more carefully to carefully grab the floor discs.

I think the takeaway is that drivers need to be practiced and really know their robot inside and out regardless of year, but many requirements for drivers otherwise change year-on-year.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

This. Recycle Rush was one of the most unforgiving games we've ever had in FRC. One wrong move and your match score could drop by at least 40 points, sometimes more if multiple stacks went down. In previous years if you missed a shot you could simply try again - this year's game piece made that pretty much impossible. You needed to be both consistent and fast at high levels of play, but consistency was the most important.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

I completely agree with you on this. Especially when you have big robot, there is very little room to accomplish the task.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

This would have been the best year to have a new driver because some robots needed minimal driver input, and you didn't have to drive against defense.

Also, drive coaches were only important as far as where to place stacks and read off time as unless something broke(which happened its fair share of times) your strategy didn't change on the fly much

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

While this might have been true with a few bots, most of the bots that i saw, ours included, was a completely manual control. No autonomy at all. For our team this would have been a very bad year for a new driver.

However our team really hasn't done much in the new driver training area. With some training anyone could drive.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

Even though this was my rookie year. I learned that communication is the deciding factor if you do good in a match. Good communication is key

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

I remember for our first few rounds, it sure was tricky to get the robot to be perfectly aligned with the tote chute. :D

For our robot, it was easier for our driver to collect totes from the landfill. Man, it was some intense driving.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

I'm glad I also had to drive a landfill bot... Way more entertaining :D

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

Communication is a very big part of success, whether between driver/operator/HP or alliance partners. But part of our success this year would have to be the dedication to practicing. I'll admit, it got boring sometimes, but at the time of champs I wouldn't need to have my eyes open to line up to a chute door. Our coach said before every single match this year (including Einstein Finals) "It's only another practice match" which really did help keep stress levels low.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

I did have a very different experience because only our claw was manual(and luckily me and our operator was great with it) while our whole stacking and intake system was run by one button.

My job was to position to get the second can, line up, spit the first tote out and then place the 6 stack and repeat steps two through four. If something broke(and it did a decent amount) thats when we switch to manual.

Re: Thoughts on driving in the previous season
 

I agree 1000%. Each person had a crucial role, and depending on the type of robot, human player could be extremely vital to the points. I thought Coopertition was quite interesting as well. (there were some good attempts there)

I'll have to commend you for that. That's pure zen mode.