Pressure on Drive Team
 

How much pressure is an appropriate amount to put on your drive team? I ask this question of students, teachers, and mentors alike. How much pressure do different members of your team place on the drive team itself? Is it enough that at the end of competition they go home and are asleep by 8:30 and don't wake up until 15 hours later? Or is it so little that they hardly mind the outcome of a match as long as they have fun? Is there a "right" amount of pressure to put on a drive team? If a member of the drive team makes a critical mistake, at your first regional, should they be "fired" and replaced? Or should they be given time to relax and become more comfortable with the robot?

Please, don't argue with anyone's posts in this thread. A statement of how your team does things will be fine...there isn't a "right" answer...I am interested in seeing how others do it.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

Well from my experience as a coach on the drive team, I'd love it if everyone did everything possible to remove pressure. Our whole operating team is so $@#$@#$@#$@# nervous whenever we go up. the 15 hours of sleep after competition is no exaggeration. Of course, i may be a little biased because im one of the people making decisions on the team, so i sorta put the pressure on myself, but im pretty sure that even without their team bothering them, any drive team has more than enoughs stress.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

I don't think it's too much to ask that your drive team get at least an 8 hour nights rest. I feel the pressure can't be put on the driver but has to be applied to the coach. There the ones who really make it happen.
The best driver is one who can ellegantly operate the machine and is excellent at taking direction. The outcome of a match should really be decided by the coach who is running strategies through his/her head and telling the drivers what to do.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

Well
we do feel the pressure but the team member are told to yell at the coach

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

as a driver... i knew that there would be a substantial amount of pressure to perform well at regionals. however, i was also prepared to take this pressure, no matter how much was set upon my shoulders. upon signing up for this position, i knew that pressure would come my way, and i was willing to take it all.

i am fortunate enough to be on a team where my peers are more encouraging rather than being negative after a bad match. they suggest better ways of doing things, as opposed to trashing the way things were done before. being a driver for four years, my mentors know exactly how much pressure I can take from them, and they try to avoid pushing me over this limit.

also, i am not only recieving the pressure, but i also tend to pressure my team mates, and especially the rest of the drive team. teamwork is necessary when driving, and i expect the arm operator to do exactly what we're being told to do, and not doing whatever he wants.

all in all, pressure from our peers and mentors is needed to perform well. pressure to an extent is good, and it keeps the drivers on their toes. however, once a person pushes the drive team over the edge with this pressure, then things can turn ugly pretty quickly, and this should be avoided (afterall, we are here to have fun arent we? :yikes: )

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

the drive team puts enough pressure on itself that they really don't need other people doing it for them.

if a coach is applying pressure on a driver, then you really need to find a new coach. This year, the coaches only job should be feeding balls to the human player, and maybe watching the other side of the field to alert the driver to opportunities that may present themselves. all strategy and decision making authority rests within the driver, as he or she is the only one who can truly affect on the spot decisions. trying to have a coach making the decisions and then telling the driver what to do allows for way too much confusion in a match - concentrating all of that strategy within only the driver eliminates that confusion.

don't be hard on the drivers, just trust them to do what it is they do.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

15 hours of sleep... are you kidding? I'm lucky if I get 4-5 at a competition, and I havent noticed it affect me adversely yet!

I think that there shouldnt be much pressure on the drive team at all. I believe they do their best when left to do their own thing.

Cory

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

after youve been doing FIRST for several years you realize you cant take the competitions too seriously

on our team we designed our bot to perform certain functions, and we see the competition as a chance to see how well we designed and built it

so we measure our success based on how well our bot does what we wanted it to - and all we ask from our drive team is to do their best to make the bot perform the way we intended

and we also stress that 25 of us spent 6 weeks designing and building this thing - and they only have 2 minutes on the field to make it do its stuff, so if the match doesnt go well they should not feel like they let us down - because they are only a small part of the whole team

if our team was perfect our bot would be perfect - it would do everything and do it well - it would be a dream to drive - a child could operate it

but we never had a perfect bot - so the driver has a less than perfect machine to work with -why would we expect the drive team to be perfect?

If we succeed, we succeed as a team

if we fail, we fail as a team

but either way, we are a team - we go home together

and celebrate our accomplishments, whatever they are

and try to learn from our mistakes.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

let me clarify. I am not saying that the drive team should or should not get a certain amount of sleep. I am saying that because of the amount of pressure put on them they went home and simply couldnt function, so "crashed out" for a LONG time.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

15 hours when you get back from competition. I do about the same during the competition. I really run on adrenaline the whole time. [edit] too late with the post, but "crashed out" sounds just about right [/edit]

As for the coach not being able to make decisions, i dont agree. I think i have been pretty effective at coach but this is because i had experience driving at the last regional. I really dont think anyone should be coach without driving and playing a couple of matches (at least practice rounds). You really need to know what your robot can do, and you cant get that from watching.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

that's beautifully said, Ken, but when the drive team is some of the same 25 that gave their time, its hard not to be really stressed out. It becomes 2 minutes that have to make your 6 weeks worthwhile.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

i know (from experience) how much pressure the drivers put on themselves. i know the thing that gets me all nervous before a match is if im going to perform well or not. it's in the back of my mind all the time in competition. i can't help but think, that if we lose a match, it's my fault. we (as many other teams ive seen) all have great robots, very capable of winning, so it seems like if it's not a technical problem, it's all driver error. despite all the encouragement i get from the instructors and team mates, i still get REAL nervous. giving drivers any MORE pressure will probably not help them out at all.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

Max - we got picked by 211 to be alliance partners at Pittsburgh - when the elim matches were starting our two drivers were in the pitts, half asleep on the floor

not that they were up all night - they were just very relaxed and laid back

BTW - are you really an engineer? 17year old engineer? thats amazing :^)

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

A driver feels all the same pressure a star athelete would on a football team before their homecoming game..and this pressure is felt every match.

Re: Pressure on Drive Team
 

This is coming from a four year drive team member and lifelong basketball player....remember experiance varies with everyone.

This is a hairy topic...Its similar to that of sports teams....being on the drive team means that you are accepting a certian level of pressure. Its no different that being on a basketball team or football team or whatever. And if you make an error or lose a match just get back up and try it agian.

The amount of pressure really does stem from the drive team and the personalities is the point im trying to make.


-Pat