Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Silly, but with more teams going to 2 or more events than ever before (districts), it's probably saving a lot of raw material.

- Sunny G.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I mean silly in that it will probably cause more waste because so many teams will lose or forget them. As an LRI I see a couple teams every event that don't have their lock up forms (which literally allows you to work on you robot) so I'm sure teams will lose buttons. Some teams find it difficult to not lose the buttons during a 3 day event let alone a 16 week season.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

There have been years where teams didn't get new buttons for district championship, and were expected to re-use their previous buttons. Most teams were able to do that (at least after practice day), but there was always at least a handful that had to get new buttons made up.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

The spare button theory doesn't make sense. What if the coach looses their button? It also can't cost THAT much to make new buttons for each event. I mean we pay $4k an event, Id hope FIRST would be able to pay for new buttons every tournament.

However, a second Human Player is quite possible. This would mean that there could be two possible ways humans can interact with the robot, one of which not behind the glass.

A drone operator is also kind of impractical for obvious reasons but hey, it's fun to speculate :)

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

As a team who has used our second driver as a human player whenever it was legal to do so (trust me it wasn't always legal) I don't know if there is a way to use another human player for us.

However one cool thought that crossed my mind was if this person is a builder. Lets say the game either promotes modulation and this persons job is to swap out robot parts in a safe area where the robot is disabled (like the pressure pads in 2005) or they have to build the scoring component(s) basically part of the challenge is also how quickly the teams members can build interlocking puzzle game pieces even if only for the end game.

Honestly this thought crossing my mind will make the eventual explanation upset me cause I don't think it is as cool as that.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

My thoughts exactly. Maybe not a drone, but some sort of aircraft, or maybe a train.

I think there's a possibility that it's to allow you to have a mentor in queue if you have a student coach.

Jetpack game? :cool:

This.

Also a possibility. Maybe something similar to how HPs could place totes in 2003, but only at the beginning of each match.

I think the coach button is an improvement over just the green dot. Since it's now clearly labeled as for the coach only, there should be less confusion. If that button is lost, the coach could use one of the regular buttons, but that wouldn't have the control restrictions, so I don't think that's quite it.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I don't think it's "reading too much into" a blog post to suggest that a picture with a set of buttons on it represents one set of buttons. There's one coach and one safety captain, and then one more button than people expect on a drive team.

It's late December, they know what happens when FIRSTers read blog posts. There's no way they would get one set of buttons and then go "oh, actually yeah, let's grab a sixth button from this second set, with the same team number, that will frame it better". Doesn't make a lick of sense.

Only Championship buttons are labeled with the name of the event on them. Every other button is generic, and can be re-used from event to event. At least since 2009.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Yep you are right, my mistake. Apparently I haven't looked to closely at the buttons in awhile.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Seems like a lot of stuff is pointing to the return of minibots. 5th drive team member is likely a driver for the minibot. Doesn't make too much sense to have 6 human players per alliance.

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I didn't see a Media button. Any chance that the Media person is now considered part of the drive team?

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Yay! Someone else thinks drones are involved in this game!

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I would guess that it's driver/operator (3) + coach (1) + safety captain (1) + spare (1). Or they figured out that sometimes drive team members aren't the only ones who need field access, and a drive team button design was handy.

There is no way that it's Media. Mainly because media folks are going to really hate being confined in the back of the driver's station, and that's where they'll need to be if they've got a driver's badge! Imagine if you've got a media person roaming the sidelines with cameras, AND getting flagged every match for half the match, just because a "drive team member" stepped outside the box.

Media passes have been event-specific in the past. Some events don't have quite as much space as others...

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

Hints you say?

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

We can barely communicate with six robots reliably do you guys think FIRST is going to add three mini bots or drones into that crowded bandwidth?

Re: Five Person Drive team in 2017
 

I sure hope so! I love chaos.