Middle School Drivers
 

We at team 1000, a rookie team from Valparaiso Indiana, are arguing about who should drive and one of the main things being argued is if middle school student should drive. I think that they should not be allowed to drive for us for some key points.

1. The middle schools students that help our immature and don't focus well.

2. Other team would look down upon us, because of it.

3. They will eventually be high school students.

I would like to know how everyone else feels about this subject and if they are in favor of or are against the idea.

Our criteria for driving is

#1 Driving ability and knowledge of the game

#2 Amount contributed to the bot

#3 Seniority

mostly seniority, but if someone is really good at controling the robot than an older one, I'd give him a shot. Also another thing you should tak in to consideration is who can drive well while be at a competition with loud noise and a coach screaming in your ear.

i believe that if you allow ms students to work on your robot without allowing them to drive your being awfully agist. just because they're in ms doesn't mean they have less of a right to drive than anybody else, especially if the mentors have enough faith in them to even bring up that possibility

this is because of gelousy is it?

I personally think that if you want to be a driver you should know everything about the game(all the rules), you should be on the team of coarse, you should be part of the High School(when I say part of the High School I mean you should go to it), you should be constantly working on the robot, and you should work well under pressure.

no, the reason they wouldn't be abel to drive is that they're probably not very good at it.


excellence in control of the robot is the only criteria for our drivers. well, they DO have to be on the team of course...

We are a 99% homeschool team, and have a fair amount of 8th grade-or-less team members.

I am in 8th grade and have made it on the driving team, so my opinion might be somewhat BIOSed (I have been playing with computers for to long :) ) and I think you will guess what it is.

Re: Middle School Drivers
 

1. That seems to be an extreem generalization. I'm sure that there are some that are doing work and trying to stay a productive part of the team.. Of course those arent always the ones that want to drive.

2. I highly doubt this. If the middle school kids are good enough to be productive on the team and know what there talking about on the robot then most teams probably won't even realize its a middle schooler driving. Just make sure the person driving knows every detail about the robot, regardless of middle or high school.

3. This one I tend to agree with. The high school students don't have alot of time (4 seasons isn't enough, many dont even get that).

Before worrying about grade level i'd worry about knowledge and abilities. The driver needs to be able to compensate on the fly for problems mechanically, electronically, and in the programming. If the robot starts veering to the left they need to be able to quickly determine if the chain is binding, if the joystick isn't callibrated, or if its something else thats about to destroy the drive system or burn out the motors, and what to do to correct it, etc. If you have multiple operators you could let one of the middle school students handle the secondary controlls (ie box grabber, stacker, etc), or just be the extra player so they can still be in the driver station (I know its not the same but its still much better than being in the stands).

In my honest opinion, driver skill is more important than any other factor. Team 1197, the team I am with this year, has a freshman driver. While he is the youngest person and only freshman on the team, he did demonstrate the most skill during driver practice and when he drove the edu-robot. If a middle schooler wants to drive the robot, i think he should be judged by the same factors that any other potential driver is such as driving skill and dedication to the team. Too often teams get caught up in the whole senority debate and lose sight of whether their driver is really the most qualified individual.

Second, I do not think team's will look down on you because of your driver's age. I have been on 2 teams and told both of them that they should let their robot do the talking. Therefore, if you are competetive, your robot will speak for itself and you will not be looked down upon. Furthermore, it is not gracious professionalism to look down on another team simply because of driver age.

Anyway, that is just my opinion. I hope you get the best driver!

i do not agree that your team would be looked down upon. i believe that i, if not many other people in FIRST, would be impressed with a good driver no matter what the age. in fact, we might just be wowed by such a young driver.

i agree that driver skill and knowledge are more important than anything (besides participation). you might have an excellent driver, that didn't lift a finger during the season, and does not deserve to drive.

if you are arguing about it, pull out the robot, set up an obstacle course, have things thrown unexpectedly in front of the robot, and see who handles it best. may the best man (or woman) drive. but do not discriminate on the basis of age.

I thought our 8th grader couldn't be on the field. Silly me - I had interpreted the rule "pre-college" student to mean only high schoolers could be on the field.

Our 8th grader is an awesome human player.

We have a 10yo computer programmer whiz kid. He works awesomely independently and with high school kids or adults. Anyone else have elementary kids?

Re: Middle School Drivers
 

Our 8th graders are a couple of the best on our team. CJ is an awesome worker. Ashton learned 8 machines in 2 weeks, and has good insight on many things. Both of these kids work well with adults too.

There are three fair ways to select who drives:

A. Best driver drives
B. Drivers are rotated to allow everyone a chance to drive
C. Combination of the two

None of them should include age, expect when otherwise noted in the rules (example: college students can't drive :rolleyes: )

Under Best includes behavior on and off the field, so if someone is immature they should not be driving anyway... but don't generalize Middle School Students like that, there are just as many High School Students and College Students who are immature as well.

Amen!