One or Two Drivers??
 

Hello teams

At conpetition, do you use one or two drivers who control the robot? Also, how do you train the drivers to work well together and what are the pros and cons for having one or two drivers. Any feedback is great!

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

We have always used two drivers. In our opinion, it is easier to have one person, the driver, operating the movement of the robot; while the other, the operator, operates all mechanisms. This spreads the workload over two people.

The pros of having one driver is that there doesn't have to be as much communication. If the controls are simple enough, one driver would suffice.

It's also better to get that extra member out there just for the experience of driving the robot. From my perspective, driving at competition is one of the best experiences I've had in my lifetime. It's an awesome feeling being able to compete, especially at worlds.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

This school year our team competed with 2 robots.

The first a Recycle Rush robot had 2 drivers. One to drive the other to control the lift. It allowed the lift to be controlled more easily while driving.

The second a Stronghold bot had 1 driver. We found it was easier for a single driver (myself) then for 2 people.

I say do what works for you and you can never be wrong.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

For our regular competition season we used one driver. It worked alright, except the accuracy and speed of boulder intake/outtake left something to be desired. Thus, we will be trying out 1 driver and 1 operator at our offseason events. Essentially one person will drive and line up shots and the other will intake and shoot boulders. I personally think that will work better as there is less thought involved on the one person, but to each their own.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

We've found that you may want to give the shooting to the main driver. This is because the driver knows when they are ready to shoot and are done moving.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

I would say a single skilled driver capable of controlling the entire robot will always be quicker and more reliable than two half-skilled drivers. There are basically two ways to accomplish this: Driving practice or code complexity. If you allocate more time to driver practice, your driver MAY eventually be able to control an entire complex robot by themselves. I say MAY eventually as this is a pretty difficult task.

To compensate for driver skill, or if you have an exceedingly complex robot, you will need to automate some tasks to lighten the burden on the driver. Perhaps instead of controlling 3 different actuators with 3 different inputs that result in a shooting motion, you have a single "shoot" button that makes the life of the driver much easier.

Both driver practice and complex software will require a lot of time to get good, so you need to manage your time well during the build season and be realistic about what can be accomplished. This means finishing the robot extra early, and potentially building two robots so your mechanical folks can keep working/tuning the primary bot while your coders/driver works on the secondary bot.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

So how would you code multiple drivers for one robot??? We used one driver this year but we only had three buttons that were used.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

We only use one driver (me). It is simply a lot faster for me to do everything, than trying to communicate what I am trying to do with another person, and tell them exactly what to do.

But I can only say do what your team finds best for you guys and your bot

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

We change it up based on the robot's functionality. In 2015, our robot was simple so we only used one driver, since the only mechanism on our bot needed to work well as the driver moved around the field. This year, we used two, since our shooter mechanism worked independently of our driving.

Basically, if a feature or mechanism needs to work at specific times while moving (intake or A-defense manipulation for example), our base driver gets control of it. If it works independently (e.g. shooter or hanger), it's given to our copilot.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

We use two drivers and have found it to be very reliable for us. While two drivers will never be able to communicate as well as one driver, there are often a lot of tasks that need to be taken care of at once.

I have found that, by using a two-driver setup, I can focus on the task of getting around defense and not worry about forgetting to turn the shooter on or raising our arm over defenses.

There is also an objective bonus to using a two-driver setup: you get more analog inputs. This isn't necessary for every robot, but most controller setups are limited to two analog inputs (one for each thumb). Some manipulators really like having analog control, and you probably want analog control for your drive train too.

While it might seem like two-driver is madly inefficient because of communication issues, a little practice can seriously mitigate that, and makes a lot of complex multitasking maneuvers much easier.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Remember too that while technically having one guy do it all can be more efficient than two people working together, the advantage of the latter is that you're teaching at least two of your team members to work together. There's serious value in learning how to work well and communicate effectively with other people, learning to keep their cool in heated and stressful situations, and so on.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

What we did this year was had the main driver drive, use the breach arm, and shoot. The second driver was intake up down, and actually Intaking, also he had for a brief time the capability for climbing.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

If you only use three buttons, one driver is usually best. If your robot has multiple continuous manipulators and little automation, you may want to add a second driver (or gunner). In this case, the drive controls will be on one joystick/controller and the manipulators on another.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

If anyone wants to know. I attached a image file of our controls this year. While it seems like a lot, I had no problem keeping up. But then again (no offense intended to anyone at all) not every person is capable of multitasking etc.... I simply just find it a lost easier to have only one driver. Because I do a lot of stuff "on the spot" and it would be impossible trying to explain to another person (like a shooter) what I'm about to do...

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

I've found in my experience that a little faith in your drive team partner can go a long way. Our team uses a few keywords to communicate. "Acquire" means we're going to go intake that ball. "Raise" means raise the arm. "Fire" means... fire.

I've found that most of the time I can just rely on my partner to do the right thing "on the spot" so long as we communicate about what our goals are. If we're stuck on the moat, for instance, and I we need to swing our arm in such a way that it shifts our CoG forward, a simple "we're stuck" will suffice, though usually I don't have to say anything in the first place.

The notion that making snap judgments on the spot is impossible with two drivers is a fallacy. (See 330 righting themselves on Einstein if you don't believe me)

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

That doesnt look too too bad. Im the driver and I can most likely keep up with that. Using a joystick with that many buttons would be SUPER confusing.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

If you are looking at switching to two drivers, you have to know that they can communicate. We used two drivers this year and had some matches where my manipulator knew exactly when I would be lined up to shoot without me even telling him to shoot. That in sync behavior is what you need, very similar to sports. However during some matches we would shoot before we lined up due to bad communication. Another huge point for two drivers is that if something went wrong, our manipulator would have overrides to the limit switches and things like that. As a driver, it would be a nightmare to try and switch to override and manually control the device being used. Also just the amount of buttons was getting ridiculous for us and they would not all fit on the driver controller.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

To the best of my knowledge, Lightning Robotics has never fielded a single-driver robot in our 15 years of existence:

FIRST is about the Inspiration, after all, and limiting the drive team to a single student-- especially if your reason is to avoid the valuable learning experience of working closely with your peers in a high-pressure environment-- strikes me as a rather uninspiring policy to have.

...With that said, we usually divide the labor as follows:

"Driver"

• All drivetrain, all day!
• Closely related subsystems (like ramps/wedges, whose entire purpose is to help the robot to navigate the field obstacles) are sometimes bundled in as well.
• Interface is always composed of full-sized joysticks (one or two, depending on the style of drivetrain).
  • I don't care how much of a hardcore gamer you may be; a thumb stick on a hand-held game pad will never offer the kind of fine-grained control that you want for an FRC drivetrain, period.
    • [EDIT] lol, I knew that I'd get splashback for this assertion!
    • I acknowledge that many students, having grown up with access to game consoles for their entire lives, can indeed reach great heights in terms of skill with a gamepad. With practice, a good driver can learn to compensate for the robot's inertia, resulting in a very competitive performance.
    • Regardless, I stand behind my original statement. The difference in scale between a robot and a joystick is significant enough as-is, but at least a joystick still gives you some sense of the robot's inertia. There's a good reason why gamepad thumbstick extenders are a thing: range of movement is kind of a big deal, and thumbsticks have very little of that. [/EDIT]
• Above all else, we depend on the driver for consistency; on top of the usual selection requirements of driving skill and cooperative attitude, the ideal driver is completely impervious to pressure and distraction when they are "in the zone" during a competition match.

"Co-pilot"

• Controls everything else: arm, intake, shooter, what-have-you.
• Back in the days of serial ports, the co-pilot's interface usedto be custom-made: an array of knobs and buttons chosen specifically for that year's subsystems.
  • These days, we usually just give the co-pilot a handheld game pad and a printout of the button mappings.
• The co-pilot is expected to multi-task like a champion, managing several subsystems simultaneously; they must also exhibit exceptional adaptability, in order to cope with mechanism failures and [s]improvements[/s] changes made by the programming team in between matches.

"Drive Coach"

• Pretty much self-explanatory...
• Studies the large-scale goings-on around the field, coordinates with alliance partners, and issues high-level commands to the drive team. Examples...
  • If the clock is running out: "One more shot, make it count!"
  • If we're defending against a powerhouse, and a ref starts counting down for a pin: "Countdown: 3... 2... 1... back!"
  • If we're crossing a defense, boulder in tow: "Batter shot, left side!"
  • If an ally gets stuck on a boulder: "Hey [####]! You need help?"
    (And if the answer is yes) "Ok! After this shot, we go help [####]."
• Selection criteria: preferably an alumnus with competition driving experience. Alternatively, someone with experience coaching or refereeing any sport will also do nicely.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Let me give some context for our situation. SO we are a small team. 13 students, but only 3-4 that show up on a constant basis. Every build season we barely finish the bot in time for bag day (in the case of last year, not even finish, and have to finish the thursday of our first regional. We don't have time to actually practice on the bot before our first regional, and definetly don't have a practice bot. That in addition to the fact that I'm the only person on the team (not bragging here, just facts) that has the required skills to be a driver, makes it simply not possible to have a 2 drivers that communicate flawlessly. Don't get me wrong. I love my team members, and we know exactly how each one of us thinks, and i trust them 100 percent (especially us 4 that show up constantly), but 2 drivers is just not in the question :P

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

I'm curious to what particular skill you possess the others don't.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Actually being able to use a controller for starters :P .

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

We've always had a driver and an operator. Like most teams, we realize that there is a lot to driving than just going from one location to the next. The driver needs to be aware of his/her surroundings and be able to make decisions of how to drive in regards to scoring, playing defense, getting around defense, etc. Because of this, our operator takes on the responsibilities that aren't directly tailored to driving such as manipulators, turrets, arms, or other mechanisms. The operator and driver must be on the same page(whether that be talking or just knowing what the other is thinking). For example if the driver is focused on grabbing a ball and the operator sees a robot coming in at full speed into the harvester, the operator needs to make the decision to lift the harvester up. Having the driver do this is not ideal based on everything else drivers need to be worrying about. That being said, the driver has controls of some mechanisms such as gearbox shifters or occasionally the scoring procedure(such as placing tube or shooting ball).

Overall though, if the driver and co pilot can't get on the same page, it's not going to work out very well. The best teams will be the ones who can allocate practice time to make sure that when competition comes around, the driver and co pilot are in sync and performing the best they can.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Our team has run 2 drivers since the beginning of time. We attempt to take every opportunity to make it easy on the drivers as possible. Having 2 drivers almost seems necessary to play with a robot with both a drive train and a game piece manipulator. It also gives 2 eyes on the robot to make sure that everything is going according to plan. In my opinion unless your robot is as simple as a drive train and there should be 2 drivers.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

We(team 3339) always used two drivers. There is no right or wrong with this question, I can say that I met a few teams that worked great with one driver and teams that liks us worked with only one and both had great results. The main point is that you should pick what is good for your team and stick with it.
As being the driver for the last three years I can say that the most crucial thing is the communication between the drivers(when you work with a pair). We usualy choose two people that have good communication(and of course are good at operating). After doing our selections we define the language between them so every element on the field and every robot operation will have a clear and short code name. After that.... it's just practice. I know it sounds easy when I say it but it's a proccess that takes time

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Good explanation to how the roles are divided(usually). I have noticed that many teams don't use the drive coach as you mentioned, they let the drivers be "free" with their action and are gettin involved only when there is a certain unwanted situation. But again... every team have different methods. It's also depends on what drivers do you have? Do they like to be told what to do step by step and so on

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

When you say it like that, I almost feel like I have no choice but to argue the contrary, and I will. I have found that with a little bit of practice on fine control (literally just holding a controller and practicing tiny movements) I have been able to achieve a high level of control ability with gamepad thumbsticks.

I have almost never used full-size control sticks to drive, but I will say what I think the pros of gamepads are (for driver):

1) Their intuitive. The gaming industry has invested a ridiculous amount of money into making controllers that are ergonomic and intuitive to use. Students that are used to gamepads will be able to reach a high level of proficiency fairly quickly (though, I admit, this is significantly mitigated by the fact that fine-grained control practice may be necessary). I think it's similar to how many teams opt to use a steering wheel to drive their robot. Students in areas where driving is a necessity may be very accustomed to this type of controller. Here in New York City, the driving age is 18 so that kind of controller is out of the question.

2) This one might seem a little crazy but does anyone else here get jittery on the field before a big match? Can't testify that this isn't just me but when I'm feeling jittery my arms and legs might shake, but my thumbs don't.

3) You can get gamepads that rumble... Could be useful for conveying sensor data... Just an idea we've been toying around with on 694...

4) Gamepads are convenient. Our entire driver station fits inside a small Pelican case (which I take great joy in kicking, throwing, and otherwise manhandling). Obviously not a huge issue, but still, I like convenience

I'm not saying that full-sized joysticks aren't viable (because they are) but I'm also definitely willing to argue that gamepads are just as viable.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Are you seriously kidding me. I use an xbox one controller on our bot. And i have been the driver for 2 years now. A stick on the Xbox one controller is more than enough for an frc drivetrain. Our intake is embedded inside of our bot, it dosen't extend. Which means I have to align the intake opening with the boulder almost perfectly to pick it up. Which requires pretty good precision, or the ball will just hit the bumpers and roll away... I'm using a xbox one controller, yet I can pick up boulders without even slowing down (given they aren't against a wall), and our bot hits 25+ ft/sec. Just because some people can't do it, dosen't mean everybody can't.... and no, I'm not a "hardcore" gamer... I don't even use a controller for gaming....

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Agreed. We used a single controller this year for our entire bot.

We did actually use the rumble capability. Essentially when our shooter motors were moving fast enough to shoot it would rumble. The controller also did pulsating rumbles in the last 25 seconds of the Match to remind me to park on the batter. It was pretty useful.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Its not crazy at all. When we get to a regional, the first match, and maybe the second, (and also any key elimination match) my entire body will be shaking, but my hands are always steady.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

hey there!
3476 uses 2 drivers every year.
One operator in charge of the mechanism
one driver in charge of driving the robot on the field.

We find this best since all the pressure to perform is not on one person and we tend to use a lot of buttons for our extensive design features.

Personally when I was a student I was a driver and found relief in the fact that I just had to get the robot over there and someone else was there to pick up some weight.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

The rumble usage is really clever. I'll be pushing for 229 to use it in the future.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Just letting you know, in case you get some ideas, we used rumble for:

• buzz once alerting me if a boulder was successfully picked up
• buzz twice alerting me when a boulder was shot out
• 4 second buzz last 30 seconds to let me know to get my final shots in
• buzz the remaining last 15 seconds to let me know to climb

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

As someone who's worked with 3 different operators as well as flown solo over my 4 years, I think I can provide some unique insight here.

First of all, I feel that 2 drivers, if done right, is superior. I find that the less mechanisms I have to worry about controlling, the easier it is to avoid and outmaneuver opposing defense bots. This is because operating said mechanisms usually requires a close eye on our robot, which frequently leads to tunnel vision. I experienced this first hand in 2014, where I had control of loading our ball into our catapult after it was inside our robot. Many times after the ball was securely in place, I would look up from our robot and be surprised to see defense right in front of us. Conversely, in 2013, my freshman year, I had NO mechanism control; and even though I was less experienced, I generally knew where each robot on the field was and where they were going at all times, because I was able to dart my eyes around the field while keeping track of our robot in my peripheral vision. I was able to outmaneuver many defensive bots as a result.

There are exceptions, though. In 2015, there was no defense to worry about; additionally, our robot was a simple forklift with just 2 functions. So, that year I controlled everything myself, and it really wasn't an issue. Additionally, this year, we found ourselves with extremely low practice time (read: none at all). I was more confident that I could learn to control everything faster than 2 of us could learn to coordinate (our previous operator had graduated as well). I went ahead and flew solo at our first competition, and minus mechanical issues with our bot itself, we did alright. For our second competition, we used our unbag time to train up another operator, and I can say that I felt more comfortable not having to worry about controlling every little aspect on our robot.

As for doing unpracticed stuff on the fly -- from my own experience, if your 2 drivers are compatible enough, this is just as easy (sometimes easier, even) with 2 as it is with 1.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

I personally think its better to have two drivers. It is helpful because they can each focus on their job, and it is less pressure on just one person.
This year we had a lot of different mechanisms on our robot, including a turret with a vision tracking system. I was the operator, and our driver and I were also driver and operator together with the same drive coach during an off-season event in China, so we had that advantage. We also had a very rigorous practice schedule, we meet every day at our practice field (50+ hrs/week) to practice as soon as our practice bot was ready. Over time, we came up with code words so we could communicate quickly during matches. One interesting feature we had was our driver's controller would vibrate while I was vision tracking, so he would know not to drive the robot while I was tracking the target.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

And that's exactly the problem. A lot of teams don't have the resources to have time to practice on their bot, and especially don't have a practice bot.. :(

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Let's not let this thread be hijacked by this... please.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Yes, Yes. Your right, sorry guys. My bad

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

4607 uses a driver and an operator. This allows for our driver to concentrate on what they can do best - and the operator make split second decisions that the driver may not be able to. We are not married to this - but it served us well this year as we played a lot of breach and shooting early on and then transitioned to defense later in the season.

We have tried to stress a drive team that is built up over events/years of experience. In previous seasons, as our team was young and did not have the personnel resources the first few years, we had to do with what was available.

However, now we are striving to keep at least two of the Drive team members in the arena from year to year. As the lead mentor/head coach I feel that having experience on the field come eliminations serves the team better than having just talent.

Case in point, our driver this year was a major part of the strategy and scouting of our 2014/15 campaigns and was the driver at 2014 MRI. Our coach this season was our operator in 2015, and our operator was the driver in 2015. Our human player this year was one of our lead build members this year as well.

Next year we will be returning our operator and our coach - but they may not serve in those roles. We like to have students move away from their roles from the previous seasons as it allows more peer to peer mentoring and allows for duplicity in all areas.

As for the drive team, we feel that having a blend of students with the backgrounds in strategy/scouting, build, programming, electrical, and wiring on the team serves us well.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

2502 used one driver in 2015, but it was with a driver that had three years of experience. The robot was difficult to drive, but he was able to handle it so we used the extra driver as an extra human player to pass totes. Most years we have used two drivers including this year.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Adrenaline rush! Love it- makes me perform better.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

1991 uses 2 drivers, one driving, and one auxiliary. We have found it much easier to let the driver work solely on the movement, and the auxiliary on everything else. The more that we worked together, the better we got. At the end of worlds we were very good with out communication and we were having a fun time while also doing well in the matches.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

Has anyone ever thought of using three drivers? One to be an operator, one to drive the front wheels, and one to drive the back. The advantage of this is that just in case one of your drivers gets injured during a match, you still have two wheels driving instead of 0.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

I would most likely keep one person driving. Some robots do use tank drive, meaning is you want to go left right or even straight, it would be very difficult to communicate. If you are using mecanum or swerve, I think that would also be an issue, for strafing would be very difficult to get the correct amount of force needed to strafe in the desired direction.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

You would have to give up your human player (based on rules of the past few years at least), and space would get crowded behind the glass.

Re: One or Two Drivers??
 

First rule of the internet: don't feed the trolls.

Back on topic, 1986 almost always uses two drivers. One has control of the drivetrain and shifting, and any functions that take over the drive (autoaim, auto-cheval). Everything else is on the other operator, so that the main driver can focus on driving. Lots of practice is required to execute this well, although the same is true of any setup. A great coach is essential as well, so that everyone is on the same page all the the time.