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Yankeefan181 24-12-2010 10:46

Drive Team Configuration
 
Hey people of FIRST,

I've been thinking recently about my team's current drive team configuration (Pilot, Co-Pilot, Coach, Human Player) and was wondering if that matched up to what other teams had? I'm curious to know if anyone has thought of having 2 coaches and only one pilot, rather than pilot/co-pilot?

Jeffy 24-12-2010 10:59

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
This year, our "second driver" was much more of a coach than a driver. Most teams used their second drivers to control kick settings, however our robot did not need such adjustment.
The second driver's job was to keep track of the balls in the zone we were in. It proved very helpful when balls were just out of site behind the tower, bump, or up against the alliance wall. The human players acted as "coaches" sometimes too. It became very helpful for a front zone robot driver to have help from the human players. The human players were a "spotter" and could tell you if the ball went in the goal, or if you were lined up correctly.

rcmolloy 24-12-2010 11:00

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
It's dependent on the game really. If the robot only has to do about 1 or 2 tasks then I would suggest one driver and then 2 coaches premise. Although, most likely there are more tasks that need to be done that another person driving is needed. Personally, I would love to have been able to just do all of the driving/manipulation last year but there were too many commands that needed the assistance of a second driver. If you are going to have two make sure that they can communicate efficiently. That was one thing that we had a decent grasp on last year but there were some miscommunications as well.

Josh Fox 24-12-2010 11:00

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
I think the usual drive-team combination for an FRC team is similar to what your team uses.

In my opinion, there is generally too much for one person to control on a single FRC robot effectively, requiring a second driver/Operator/Co-Pilot.*

On Team RUSH we typically give one driver complete control over the chassis of the robot and nothing else, and everything else is given to the other driver. The exceptions to this being that in 2009 we attempted to give the chassis driver control over the moonrock intake rollers, which was generally unsuccessful and just easier for the "co-pilot" to operate.

Also, as the posters above mentioned, having a human player that can be aware of things going on on the field and communicate them to your coach or drive team can be a great strength.


*The only exceptions to this that comes to mind are from 2008 where several teams built robots to do laps with few, to no, additional mechanisms for other tasks, the most prominent of these teams being world-champs team 148.

Radical Pi 24-12-2010 11:04

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
We usually have it setup so that the first driver only controls the wheels (that's more than enough for one person to handle) and the second driver controls anything else in the year's game (last year it was kicking, kicker power, hanging control, and a switch to invert the drive controls (It was the only way we could go under the tower for some reason)

jspatz1 24-12-2010 11:04

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
The Game Rules define how many may be on the drive team, whether a human player(s) is needed or allowed and how many, whether a coach(s) is needed or allowed and how many, etc. We do not know yet what the 2011 drive team may consist of. We find a robot's control scheme pretty much determines whether or not a co-pilot is needed.

midway78224 24-12-2010 12:06

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
We have always done it where the Pilot controls the base of the robot. The co-pilot controls everything else. The human player depending on its role in the game it can be another set of eyes. The coach is always a set of eyes to watch out for the driver can't see.

apalrd 24-12-2010 12:59

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Our configuration - We have ALWAYS arranged our drive team like this:

Driver - Drives the robot, has control of the drivetrain only. This year, that included the actual drive motors, shifting, and movement of the arm for bump-crossing ONLY (all other arm movement was controlled by the operator). He/she generally has either two joysticks or a Logitech gamepad (not xbox - the xbox joysticks are not symetrical and do not work as well for a tank drive). He/She always looks at the robot only, focusing their attention on where they want the robot to go, what opponents are in their way, and how to get there. This year, they could pick which goal they wanted to go for based on which one was more open.

Operator - Handles the rest of the robot. They generally have a custom-made control box built for that robot, and might have another joystick also (for example, our 2006 robot had manual targeting on the joystick, while 2007 had slide/manual overrides on the joystick). He/She takes orders from the driver on mechanism operation, and adjusts parameters (such as kick distance) on their own.

human player - They generally operate "autonomously", performing their tasks without interacting with the other drive team members too much. This year, the two goal human players would scream that the ball was in if the driver was pushing the ball up to the goal, so the driver knew to go away and get another.

Coach - This is always Jim Zondag. He looks at the entire field, and decides what the best plan of action is. He usually shouts orders (such as "GO GET THOSE BALLS ON YOUR LEFT AND SCORE THEM THEN GO HANG"). He does not care how the driver does it, just that the driver gets the balls and scores them as fast as possible.

After practice and events, they generally get very very good at communicating with one another. They know what the robot can do, how to perform their action fast, etc. I recently talked to our 2007 driver (Woody), who said that by the end of the season, him and Dave (the operator) knew how to drive and move the arm so that the whole robot would lean forward on the front two wheels and score at the same time, in one smooth motion.


Another important and related topic is how to choose the driver and operator. For us, we pick the driver and operator as a pair who work together well, and are dedicated to the team. They stay the latest on late nights, come every day, and generally try to hold leadership positions. IF the human player requires a certain skill (such as 2009), that will be a deciding factor. If the human player requires little skill (2008 robocoach, 2010, etc.) then the human player will usually be the one who shows promise as a future driver.

davidthefat 24-12-2010 13:09

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
I am not sure if this was our flaw that led to our mediocre performance, but we switched our drivers almost every round. Our mentor wanted other people to try it. I was the "coach" for most of the rounds but I just stood there looking like an idiot (mostly because it was my first year, I had no idea what to do... I still have no idea) And we switched the human players around too. All the controls were mapped to one joystick, like the moving, kicking, turning on and off components. So we never needed an "operator" I think that defeats the purpose. You never see video games where 2 people control the same character.

Im planning on so that we only need to send a human player and a driver. Yes I am confident that I can make it fully autonomous; the driver is there to manually override the robot if it goes haywire.

Tom Ore 24-12-2010 13:18

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988281)
Im planning on so that we only need to send a human player and a driver. Yes I am confident that I can make it fully autonomous; the driver is there to manually override the robot if it goes haywire.

I think you're going to want a coach. (We always use a student as a coach.) One of the roles of the coach is to coordinate strategy with the other teams in your alliance. This will be difficult for the driver and human player to do during the match.

Fully autonomous is pretty high goal - you may want to be sure you have full manual control first before going after full autonomous.

apalrd 24-12-2010 13:51

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988281)
we switched our drivers almost every round.

Not good. Not Not Not Not Not good.

The more a driver drives, the more practice they get. Our current driver and operator (Matt and Kitty) have driven in aprox. 150 matches, 130 of them together. They still have one FRC season left before graduating. They are very very good at operating the machine, and know how to communicate with each other. If your drive team changes in every match, they will not have the experience of a drive team of another team who doesn't change every match, so even with a better machine, the other team will still win.

There is a universal trend that shows that teams get better as they play at more events. While they make changes to the robots, most of this is because of driver practice.

Have you ever been to an off-season with mentor matches? Teams tend to perform worse when the mentors drive. At the MARC, we had an alumni driver (and he drove for two years in FRC), and our coach (Jim) as our driver and operator. They lost early on. With our regular operator and coach (and a different driver, who had about 2 hours of practice time) we won the event.

EricH 24-12-2010 14:06

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Second the not good on switching every round.

Places you can get away with it: practice field, practice matches.
Places you could if (and that's a big if) you had 2-3 very good teams: Friday qual matches.
Places you can't: Saturday qual matches.
Places you really can't: Eliminations, if you're in them.

I think back to my time on 330. We really only had a couple of drive teams, and one coach. There were backups, but the primary drive team got most of the practice time. When we had a good, solid drive team, the human player switched every year, but the drivers never did. Between 2005 and 2008, we had one event where we did not make eliminations. One. The 2006 Championship. We had one drive team.

Regarding only having one person control the robot: It depends on the robot. But for most robots, the driver would need 3 hands with extra fingers on each hand to do it right. There are exceptions to this, like the Brave Little Toasters that drive around, get in the way, and otherwise make themselves annoying to the offense robots, but as a general thing there are too many motions to control. The only thing worse than having only one person control the robot is to have two people who don't work together very well. The trick is to find a pair of drivers who work well together such that they are almost extensions of each other when it comes to driving the robot.

The reason video games never have two people controlling the same character is because everyone wants to do everything. FIRST robots always have between 2 and 3. One is the programmer, another is the driver, and the third is the operator.

A better parallel might be a military or commercial aircraft. The only planes in those categories to have one pilot are some fighters. Most planes (including alternate models of most of those fighters) have a flight crew of at least 2 plus an autopilot. One is the pilot, one does stuff other than actually fly the plane, like dial in a target to the weapons system or check the weather ahead. That's what you need to be thinking like for the drive team.

Cyberphil 24-12-2010 14:07

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by apalrd (Post 988288)
Not good. Not Not Not Not Not good.

The more a driver drives, the more practice they get. Our current driver and operator (Matt and Kitty) have driven in aprox. 150 matches, 130 of them together. They still have one FRC season left before graduating. They are very very good at operating the machine, and know how to communicate with each other. If your drive team changes in every match, they will not have the experience of a drive team of another team who doesn't change every match, so even with a better machine, the other team will still win.

There is a universal trend that shows that teams get better as they play at more events. While they make changes to the robots, most of this is because of driver practice.

Have you ever been to an off-season with mentor matches? Teams tend to perform worse when the mentors drive. At the MARC, we had an alumni driver (and he drove for two years in FRC), and our coach (Jim) as our driver and operator. They lost early on. With our regular operator and coach (and a different driver, who had about 2 hours of practice time) we won the event.

Extremely well stated.

By far, the best thing your team can do to improve your robots performance is get the drivers as much practice as possible! Whether that means both of them working together, or if you only have one person driving all of the robot.

In Breakaway, our mentor decided that it would be a good idea to have one person drive every part of the robot at once, and have the operator be more like a spotter, telling the driver where the balls were if the driver could not see them.

We did not finish our robot early enough to have a lot of practice for the operator and I. We did not do extremely well at our first competition, and this is mainly because the drivers had extremely limited practice.

Our best performance was in Ramp Riot, the post season event, because I had plenty of time behind the controls and knew how the robot drove and worked extremely well.

So words of wisdom:
1. Find your drivers early and practice, practice, practice, PRACTICE!
2. Make sure they know the game and how FIRST works in general (We do not let new kids drive the robot no matter how good they are)
3. Practice more

Hope this helps!

Koko Ed 24-12-2010 14:18

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Our drives team consist of a driver an operator (who handles whatever scoring apparatus the robot uses) a human player and a coach (which has always been and most like always will be a student with us). We have a backup driver and a backup human player.

Chris is me 24-12-2010 16:00

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988281)
So we never needed an "operator" I think that defeats the purpose. You never see video games where 2 people control the same character.

Defeats what purpose? What purpose are you referring to?

Anyway, every competitive team has a consistent drive team, and a large majority of them have two drivers.

And to be blunt, if you haven't figured out how to make a drive team successful, what makes you think your team will be able to pull a fully autonomous robot? Where do you get all this confidence from when you haven't been able to pull anything resembling AI together in the preseason? Before you get artificial intelligence down, you should be able to figure out how normal "human intelligent" drivers work.

GaryVoshol 24-12-2010 16:06

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Beside being able to operate the controls, the drivers need to be able to work well together. If the driver goes "left" as the arm operator tries to pick up "right" - not a recipe for success.

If you should decide to switch people around, be sure everyone who is partcipating knows the rules. I don't know how may stupid penalties have been called because there's someone new out there that doesn't know what is going on and does something illegal - blatantly illegal, something that drivers and HP's who were around from Match 1 would know enough not to try.

JVN 24-12-2010 16:29

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988281)
...we switched our drivers almost every round. Our mentor wanted other people to try it.

i'll be the brutally honest one who says:

1. I hope we never get "randomly" assigned as your alliance partner.
2. We probably would never pick you as a partner in the eliminations.

Every match your partners are relying on you to do your very best, doing anything less is a disservice to them. Keeping a consistent driver is absolutely essential to good performance -- each match that goes by the driver will improve exponentially.

I love how if someone talks about intentionally "throwing a match" by not doing their best, the entire community flips out... but if someone talks about changing out their drivers...

-John

Siri 24-12-2010 16:37

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Most years, we have a driver and operator. In "arm" games like 2007, these roles have similar control demands and require excellent coordination between the two. This changes from game to game for us though, for instance 2009 was less operator intensive. In 2010, we really didn't use our operator much during the season at all. (In retrospect, we should have given them another official job.) The extra functions were relatively easy for our driver to control, but part of it was just lack of driver-operator coordination. Once we found an operator that fit in well, it got easier.

I'll vouch for the practice-practice-practice stances, though. Having been a
mechanical and pit captain, captain-manager, operator and coach, drive team practice is the most efficient way to improve your performance. Don't change your drive team!

Also, Karthik says, 'the role of the field coach cannot be overstated'. If you don't know what you're doing, find out! Ask fellow coaches (especially if they're from 71, 1114, 148*, 217, 45, 33...) and ask your drive team. Read and practice.

*EDIT: yes, listen to that guy. ^

davidthefat 24-12-2010 16:59

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 988314)

And to be blunt, if you haven't figured out how to make a drive team successful, what makes you think your team will be able to pull a fully autonomous robot? Where do you get all this confidence from when you haven't been able to pull anything resembling AI together in the preseason? Before you get artificial intelligence down, you should be able to figure out how normal "human intelligent" drivers work.

Oh yea I remember, I won't be using ANY of the code I am writing before kick off on the robot. Im scrapping everything I do pre kickoff and doing it all over during the build. Never knew people took this so seriously.

Chris is me 24-12-2010 17:06

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988329)
Oh yea I remember, I won't be using ANY of the code I am writing before kick off on the robot. Im scrapping everything I do pre kickoff and doing it all over during the build. Never knew people took this so seriously.

I'm saying if in the past 6 months, with all your practice you didn't get anything close to what you wanted done, why do you thin with only 6 weeks you will be able to accomplish this?

Do you really want to jeopardize your own success? That's your right to do so. But what about the rest of the team, too? Are you going to put your own demands and delusions above them?

What about your alliance partners? Do you really think they want to be your guinea pigs for autonomy tests? There's a match going on and they probably want to win it.

BX MARK 24-12-2010 17:13

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988329)
Never knew people took this so seriously.

I have only been around for a year now and I can tell you that this is taken very, very seriously. After all that's why there is a huge forum just for Robotics. :)

rsisk 24-12-2010 17:18

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988329)
Never knew people took this so seriously.

Honesty and integrity should always be taken seriously. It's the lubrication that makes the world go round.

davidthefat 24-12-2010 17:32

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 988332)
I'm saying if in the past 6 months, with all your practice you didn't get anything close to what you wanted done, why do you thin with only 6 weeks you will be able to accomplish this?

Do you really want to jeopardize your own success? That's your right to do so. But what about the rest of the team, too? Are you going to put your own demands and delusions above them?

What about your alliance partners? Do you really think they want to be your guinea pigs for autonomy tests? There's a match going on and they probably want to win it.

True, but remember, there are at least 8 programmers this year. I'm the only one attempting the automation, I'm sure all the other guys can write the robot code fine. Now that makes me sound like the black sheep but honestly I can say that I can write the full human controlling code in less than a week. May be I am selfish for trying this automation thing. I do not believe in failures. Even if I do not accomplish my full automation, there will be a big platform to work with during the automation mode. Also I learn from that experience that I can apply later on. And when my full automation does work as intended, the code written by the other programmers might not ever run because the robot would be stuck in the automation loop. May be I am just quixotic and being too idealistic. In my eyes, being idealistic is better than beating your self up because of your lack of self esteem.



About the guinea pigs that I call my alliance members. They are not the only guinea pigs, my whole life is a guinea pig.
Taken from JaneYoung's signature.
Quote:

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."
Helen Keller (1880-1968)
My whole life is a learning experience, it is inevitable that there will be people that are going to be guinea pigs in my life experience. May be I am stating it too harshly but this stage in my life is just a stepping stone. Its not the zenith of my life.

We are all guinea pigs for each other. From the experiences we all share, we all take something different from it.

edit:
I honestly don't care if we win a single match. I believe that this competition is about what we get out from the experience that matters not the win or loss. Because 30 years from now, it won't matter how many matches we won, what kind of costume we wore or any of that. What will matter is what we learned and how we use it.

JaneYoung 24-12-2010 18:28

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988336)
About the guinea pigs that I call my alliance members. They are not the only guinea pigs, my whole life is a guinea pig.

We seem to have hijacked the OP's thread. :o

David,
What I consider to be a great part of the competition aspect is strategy. Many teams study each other via the Blue Alliance and videos and communicate with each other throughout the season, networking and building a strong foundation of respect and understanding. In my opinion, ChiefDelphi serves that purpose: building respect with one another.

Granted, there are teams that wing it - stumbling through build and the competition season without fully preparing as a competitive team that can be viewed as a prospective alliance partner by other FRC teams. Sometimes, it takes years to gain respect and to learn to understand the opportunities that avail themselves to those who pay attention, are willing to learn from the best, and dig deeper into understanding what it means to be a competitive FRC team. True, there are members of teams, and perhaps, whole teams, who are in it for the experience, regardless of how well they compete. If you think about it - a lot of money has been spent just to have an experience. At some point, the individual and the team, as a whole, has to step up to the plate and take some well-practiced swings, focused on hitting one out of the park.

There are robotics competitions that switch out drivers in each match. BEST is one of those events. What we have learned when competing in BEST - is to have the driver selection process in place and enforce it. When the drivers have garnered their positions - then they have to commit to serious practice times before each competition, learning how to work together as a team in order to support each other and compete well. The robot doesn't drive itself - even in autonomous. It takes brains, know-how, strategy, practice, and communication in order for the robot to perform well and consistently in every aspect. The guinea pig time, if there is going to be any, should be in the shop, not on the field.

I love the quote in my signature and I'm glad to see it quoted. That said - it has to be applied to the discussions that you like to generate. It's about digging deep and learning from the process. It is not about staying in one place, spinning your wheels all the time, generating noise.

One more thought - in this competition you have the opportunity to work with, compete with and against, and learn from the best in the fields of science, technology, and engineering. That is no small thing. They should not be considered guinea pigs by any stretch of the imagination. They should be considered role models and leaders who are very knowledgeable and experienced.

Take time to absorb some of the responses made to your posts, David. Absorb them, think about them, and look at them from a different perspective. They are gifts.

Jane

davidthefat 24-12-2010 18:36

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by JaneYoung (Post 988343)
We seem to have hijacked the OP's thread. :o

David,
What I consider to be a great part of the competition aspect is strategy. Many teams study each other via the Blue Alliance and videos and communicate with each other throughout the season, networking and building a strong foundation of respect and understanding. In my opinion, ChiefDelphi serves that purpose: building respect with one another.

Granted, there are teams that wing it - stumbling through build and the competition season without fully preparing as a competitive team that can be viewed as a prospective alliance partner by other FRC teams. Sometimes, it takes years to gain respect and to learn to understand the opportunities that avail themselves to those who pay attention, are willing to learn from the best, and dig deeper into understanding what it means to be a competitive FRC team. True, there are members of teams, and perhaps, whole teams, who are in it for the experience, regardless of how well they compete. If you think about it - a lot of money has been spent just to have an experience. At some point, the individual and the team, as a whole, has to step up to the plate and take some well-practiced swings, focused on hitting one out of the park.

There are robotics competitions that switch out drivers in each match. BEST is one of those events. What we have learned when competing in BEST - is to have the driver selection process in place and enforce it. When the drivers have garnered their positions - then they have to commit to serious practice times before each competition, learning how to work together as a team in order to support each other and compete well. The robot doesn't drive itself - even in autonomous. It takes brains, know-how, strategy, practice, and communication in order for the robot to perform well and consistently in every aspect. The guinea pig time, if there is going to be any, should be in the shop, not on the field.

I love the quote in my signature and I'm glad to see it quoted. That said - it has to be applied to the discussions that you like to generate. It's about digging deep and learning from the process. It is not about staying in one place, spinning your wheels all the time, generating noise.

One more thought - in this competition you have the opportunity to work with, compete with and against, and learn from the best in the fields of science, technology, and engineering. That is no small thing. They should not be considered guinea pigs by any stretch of the imagination. They should be considered role models and leaders who are very knowledgeable and experienced.

Take time to absorb some of the responses made to your posts, David. Absorb them, think about them, and look at them from a different perspective. They are gifts.

Jane

May be guinea pigs were not the right words to use, but thanks again for your input.

JaneYoung 24-12-2010 18:38

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988346)
May be guinea pigs were not the right words to use, but thanks again for your input.

You are always welcome. Think of some better words and let me know via pm - we can talk about it if you would like.

Jane

Tom Ore 24-12-2010 19:28

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988336)
Also I learn from that experience that I can apply later on.

Keep in mind that anyone can learn from their own mistakes. Learning from other people's mistakes may be more difficult but that is how we truly advance.

AdamHeard 24-12-2010 20:49

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by JVN (Post 988323)
i'll be the brutally honest one who says:

1. I hope we never get "randomly" assigned as your alliance partner.
2. We probably would never pick you as a partner in the eliminations.

Every match your partners are relying on you to do your very best, doing anything less is a disservice to them. Keeping a consistent driver is absolutely essential to good performance -- each match that goes by the driver will improve exponentially.

I love how if someone talks about intentionally "throwing a match" by not doing their best, the entire community flips out... but if someone talks about changing out their drivers...

-John

As a team going to both of our regionals with 589, I'm a bit worried.

David, you may want to make a fully autonomous robot, but to attempt to do so and field a noncompetitive robot is disrespectful to every other team there.

My team (and your team) pays a lot of money to compete, in a competition, and we plan to win. To field anything but the most competitive robot is inappropriate.

They say it's not about the robot, and that the lessons, etc. that result are what are important; well, if you don't put the most you can in the most competitive robot you can, you won't get the lessons out of this program you should.

In engineering, it's important to use the appropriate tools and not more resources than are required. Building a completely autonomous robot for a teleoperated competition may be cool, but it's bad engineering. A robot with many automated and autonomous portions to make it easier on the drivers (while maintaining driver control), is good engineering.

I could keep going, but you're unlikely to consider these words anyway.

davidthefat 24-12-2010 21:38

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamHeard (Post 988377)
David, you may want to make a fully autonomous robot, but to attempt to do so and field a noncompetitive robot is disrespectful to every other team there.

My team (and your team) pays a lot of money to compete, in a competition, and we plan to win. To field anything but the most competitive robot is inappropriate.

I take that as a challenge: see you at the regionals. I will do in the best of my abilities to program a very competitive, fully autonomous robot.

BJC 24-12-2010 21:43

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988384)
I take that as a challenge: see you at the regionals. I will do in the best of my abilities to program a very competitive, fully autonomous robot.

Well... Good Luck then, and a Very Merry Christmas!

ttldomination 24-12-2010 22:29

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
I am not going to judge on what one team does or does not do, but I will provide an example.

In 2009, we were grouped with teams 1051 and 1746 in the eliminations. During the semi-finals. We won the first match, and lost the second match. In the third match, I noticed the referee throw up a penalty flag in the middle of the match, but was surprised to see that no penalty was assessed in the score.

It wasn't until about 10 seconds later that we found out that our alliance had been disqualified because the coach on one of our teams touched the controls. The team in question ran three separate drive teams, and the coach on the drive team in during the match in question happened to be the driver in another drive team set, and when he noticed something wrong, his instincts took over and he reached in to adjust a potentiometer.

Now we don't blame this team at all, they performed extremely well and we were grateful for everything they did, but one can't help but think of what could've been.

Of course, I'm not against substituting a bad driver or a driver who seems to have a lot going on in his or her mind, but I do like consistency, especially when it comes to developing skills and general know hows of a robot and a game.

Anyways, enjoy the break, and here's to a good 2011 for everyone!!!
- Sunny

R.C. 24-12-2010 22:42

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988384)
I take that as a challenge: see you at the regionals. I will do in the best of my abilities to program a very competitive, fully autonomous robot.

David,

Your failing to see the point. Adam suggested that you use your programming skills to help the drivers and the TEAM . With your abilities you could:

-Create a competitive autonomous routine
-Allow better control of the robot for drivers
-Implement more sensors that would provide valuable feedback
-Design a dashboard for you team.
-Automate tasks that would be hard for drivers (such as re cockk the kicker after kicking the 2010 soccer ball and having the kicker go to a desired position).

There are so many different and valuable things you can do to put your team in the best position to win. I believe there was a thread talking about how missions to the moon/mars are not fully autonomous and require some sort of human interaction.

A fully autonomous crappy robot isn't really that amazing, a well built winning robot is hands down much more amazing.

Its very foolish for you to ignore the advice of very talented and respectable CD members. To be honest, my team has worked all year long. Even in the off season. If my team was in the top 8 and we lost a spot cause our alliance partner used us as a "guinea pig", I would be very very upset and so would many of our parents/mentors.

Taking everyones advice here on CD as a challenge makes you look quiet stupid, it doesn't hurt for you to stop an say "Man I was wrong" and take a new direction.

Adam said it best:

"In engineering, it's important to use the appropriate tools and not more resources than are required. Building a completely autonomous robot for a teleoperated competition may be cool, but it's bad engineering. A robot with many automated and autonomous portions to make it easier on the drivers (while maintaining driver control), is good engineering."

Also take some time and think about the posts, don't reply back right away cause you HAVE to leave a reply.

-RC

Basel A 24-12-2010 22:58

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by R.C. (Post 988390)
A fully autonomous crappy robot isn't really that amazing, a well built winning robot is hands down much more amazing.

While I, in David's position, would take your advice, I don't necessarily agree with this. A fully autonomous robot that actually played the game, though not necessarily very well, would be rather impressive, at least to me.

By playing the game, I don't mean, followed a ball until it's picked up, then turned towards the goal and shot. I mean intelligently finds the closest or easiest game piece to grab while avoiding obstacles, knows not to shoat with an opponent in the way, and finally but precisely finds the goal with the game piece. Anything less than that really isn't playing the game.

Yes, that probably wouldn't be the greatest use of human resources, to use a talented programmer to recreate the most basic human driver, but that is award winning (Innovation in Control...) and a valuable experience for the programmer in question.

That said, it would probably hurt the team to a certain extent, and I can't imagine a potential drive team would be happy to see their places taken by a less competent AI. So David, if you really are going to try this, which I believe you will, if your AI is worse than a human driver, don't expect it to be used. However, if it is actually better, then that is a significant accomplishment.

Chris is me 24-12-2010 22:58

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988384)
I take that as a challenge: see you at the regionals. I will do in the best of my abilities to program a very competitive, fully autonomous robot.

Did his entire post go completely over your head? Seriously?

It's your duty in FRC to your teammates and alliance partners to put the most competitive robot possible on the field. A fully autonomous robot (assuming you do it, as literally hundreds of posts about the difficulties of such a system have again gone completely over your head) will in no way be better than a teleoperated robot with only 6 weeks of work.

Though honestly, you're lacking something far more important to your alliance partners than a good robot: good listening skills. Though, hey, everyone else in the world is your guinea pig anyway, you won't need to coordinate with them.

EricH 25-12-2010 02:08

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
David. Talk to 33 or 111. They have some of the most automated robots in the competition every year. They could probably make a serious run at a fully-autonomous robot if they wanted to. They don't. There is a reason for this!

33 has automation built into a lot of functions. A filter they wrote years ago went onto a sponsor's vehicle a year or two later with little modification. They were one of the first teams to do shift-on-the-fly--with a 4-speed gearbox that shifted smoothly. They write the automation code so that the operator can tell the robot what device X needs to be doing, and the robot just does it with no further input, if it can be done safely. Read the 2007 Behind the Design book.

111, same thing. They've built some complex robots, and the code to match. They did a 4-5 joint arm a few years back. (See the same book.) If they didn't have some form of automation, they'd be crazy.

1024, back in 2008, ran a full avoidance program (until the sensors smoked and flamed). They could avoid just about anything autonomously.

To run a fully-autonomous robot and run it well, you need to combine the avoidance code of 1024's 2008 robot with the automation of 33 and 111, along with the decision-making of a human and the drive code of your robot design. If you can't do that decision-making, settle for automation. Make it so that your driver or operator says, I need X at point Y, and the robot does it quickly and smoothly.

Very few robots could run fully autonomously these days. The last game that was practical was 2003: Drive up the ramp and lock down. 111 was one of the World Champions. This was also the first time automode came into play. 2002 would be even easier--drive straight, grab goal, drive straight, park. Imagine if 71 had run autonomously that year: Drivers hit "go" and watch the robot win the match every time (as opposed to drivers drive the robot out, shift drivetrains, and win the match).

Listen to JVN. He's been on three good teams and learned from many more. If he says that he does not want to be paired with you, without even hearing about your robot, you might want to listen to why.

On the same note, I'd want to pair with 33, 111, 71, or 148 any day, no matter the game and no matter their robot. There's a very good reason why, or several, and some of them are above.

theprgramerdude 25-12-2010 11:43

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 988395)
Did his entire post go completely over your head? Seriously?

It's your duty in FRC to your teammates and alliance partners to put the most competitive robot possible on the field. A fully autonomous robot (assuming you do it, as literally hundreds of posts about the difficulties of such a system have again gone completely over your head) will in no way be better than a teleoperated robot with only 6 weeks of work.

Though honestly, you're lacking something far more important to your alliance partners than a good robot: good listening skills. Though, hey, everyone else in the world is your guinea pig anyway, you won't need to coordinate with them.

Wrong sir. Very wrong. There is absolutely no duty whatsoever to field the best competitive robot a team can, absolutely not. It is your opinion that putting out a good tele-operated robot would be better than an autonomous one to work with, but that is just YOUR OPINION. The fact that others may share you opinion does not mean that it is going to be a fact, as it's still YOUR OPINION.

Going back to the FIRST acronym, For INSPIRATION and Recognition of SCIENCE and Technology, a working, functioning autonomous robot is hands-down the best way, IMO, to get people to be inspired by the competition. Interfacing with a human operator is a fine thing and all, but forcing a robot to run on it's own, and run well, is pure science and pure inspiration. People will respect that better than any winning robot that can do some things neatly and win, because FIRST and the FRC isn't about winning.

If he can convince his team that this course would suit them well, and they feel like it's in their most inspirational interests to do so, they should. It's why they are building a robot, after all.

BrendanB 25-12-2010 13:03

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988384)
I take that as a challenge: see you at the regionals. I will do in the best of my abilities to program a very competitive, fully autonomous robot.

Nice, good luck with that, but I would recommend you don't discard the advice given by some highly respected FRC members. From a programming perspective, that would be awesome; however, from a strategist/scout I would never pick your team in eliminations. Looking back, our team with some more controls and sensors could have probably programmed our 2008 speed racer to run laps autonomously.*** Would that have been cool, yes. Would it have been the most effective strategy, no. Why? Because when we did compete with it during the off-season we used that lap bot to not only run laps, but our driver would play defense at the same time such as knocking balls away/out of grabbers and stuff like that making it a highly obnoxious opponent. I was behind the glass during a few of those matches and found the on the fly choices genius.

Another note, how many FRC robots have successfully completed their autonomous program repeated in the exact same way every match? Along the same idea, how many robots have done the exact same things in each and every match? FLL robots compete on tables with no other robot interaction and most of them cannot pull off 400 points consistently every round all the time.

I am not doubting your programming skills, it is A match strategy, but it isn't the ONLY of most EFFECTIVE strategy. Consider the amount of time it would take to program/test/debug all of that code in 2 minute matches. I would rather take all that time to train drivers how to play the game and react to different strategies.

1519 has done the usual driver for the chassis and moving the robot, operator for the manipulators, coach for direction, and human player to do the human player things. In 2009 we gave the control of picking up balls to our driver instead of our operator too ease communication between the two.

Merry Christmas!!

***http://www.mechanicalmayhem.org/teamvideos.asp

davidthefat 25-12-2010 13:18

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Thanks to all of you that responded to my post, but now lets get back to the topic:

I suggest that you have the maximum number of persons allowed at the box at all times. You never know, what if the driver cramps up his forearm an cannot properly drive? Somebody has to come in and replace him. Ok far-fetched example, but I am exemplifying something. Always come prepared. You would never go to the regional without spare parts, tools and a computer to program the robot with. Why step onto the ring without a backup? Ben Franklin once said that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. You never know when your driver passes out during the match due to dehydration or his arms cramp up. Always have depth in your rosters.

JaneYoung 25-12-2010 14:39

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by theprgramerdude (Post 988426)
... because FIRST and the FRC isn't about winning.

I was right with you until we got to this part. There are lots of threads in CD that discuss this part and in those threads are a lot of opinions and a lot of opinions expressed using wisdom. If it were not about winning, it would not be called a competition - but FRC is much more than winning a competition and therein lies the magic of infinite possibilities. Some include how a team wins which could touch into some of our higher ideals such as playing with integrity and honor. Some can include the honor of the win or the loss, recognizing the importance of going the distance and never giving up. Some include the teamwork developed between students and their mentors, pushing us into areas of innovation, creative problem-solving, and hands-on applications. Some can include the doors that open to educational and careers opportunities that would otherwise not make themselves available or remain undiscovered. Sometimes, there is nothing sadder than a dormant or undiscovered opportunity when it is actually right at our fingertips and we aren't paying attention.

It is about winning and what that can mean.

Jane

Alan Anderson 25-12-2010 15:00

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 988395)
It's your duty in FRC to your teammates and alliance partners to put the most competitive robot possible on the field.

Quote:

Originally Posted by theprgramerdude (Post 988426)
Wrong sir. Very wrong. There is absolutely no duty whatsoever to field the best competitive robot a team can, absolutely not. It is your opinion that putting out a good tele-operated robot would be better than an autonomous one to work with, but that is just YOUR OPINION. The fact that others may share you opinion does not mean that it is going to be a fact, as it's still YOUR OPINION.

Going back to the FIRST acronym, For INSPIRATION and Recognition of SCIENCE and Technology, a working, functioning autonomous robot is hands-down the best way, IMO, to get people to be inspired by the competition.

Pay close attention to the other two letters you ignored there. We're not just talking FIRST. We're talking the FIRST Robotics Competition. If you are going for "impressive" at the expense of "competitive", it's my opinion that you're being unreasonably selfish.

That's even before considering the increasingly obvious fact that the programmer in question (and his entire team, for that matter) has more than a few other things to work on before getting to the point where a fully autonomous robot is anything more than a fantasy.

thefro526 25-12-2010 21:28

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
816 has always followed the following configuration for as long as I've been involved and from what I've heard since our inception.

Driver - Responsible for the movement of the robot and getting the robot to where it needs to be. Usually we've tried to keep the driver's controls to a minimum so there is less to worry about, but we have played on giving the driver some control over other machine functions (Ramps in 2007, Dumper override in 2009 which was never used.)

Operator - Responsible for robot manipulators. Pretty straight forward, anything that's not in the drive-train is usually controlled my the operator.

Human Player - Varies with the game, and usually is the person most likely to change from year to year depending on the role. Usually this person is relatively athletic should the game call for it, otherwise this role is assigned to one of the more dedicated members that wasn't able to cut it as Operator or Driver.

Coach - This is the role I've somehow fallen into since my graduation from HS, and I take responsibility for pre-match strategy, Analyzing Scouting Info (This varies from year to year, depending on what human resources are available) and watching the match while it is in progress. I try to keep my driveteam as well informed as possible both before and during the match so that they have less to worry about.

We also have a sort of an Assistant Coach on 816, Zach. He was our Coach in 2009 and a really close friend of mine so he usually travels with the team to help with strategy, scouting, keeping me sane, match analysis, comic relief and a handful of other things. If you don't have a Zach on your team, I think you should find one.

I place a large emphasis on drive team cohesiveness (I guess that's the appropriate term) and how well the personalities mesh with each other. I've worked with a lot of different drive team configurations in my 5-seasons with FIRST and I've found that this is often over looked. In many years we'd often pick the person that was best for a single job but often conflicting personalities would hinder the drive team from reaching it's full potential. Just something to think about.

We also like to keep at least one or two back ups for each position, but we never cycle through drive teams. (anymore) Consistency is often one of the most important things when Alliance Selections come around, so you should keep this in mind. Nothing's worse that picking a team and having them switch drivers or coaches during a match - it really messes up the flow of things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 988395)

It's your duty in FRC to your teammates and alliance partners to put the most competitive robot possible on the field.

And statements like this are why I love you, Chris.

I really might have to borrow this one.

sithmonkey13 26-12-2010 21:14

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
In 2010 for 1178 we had:
Driver: Drove the robot, could activate the kicker, or hold down a button to deactivate it

Weapons Operator: (Team Name, makes it sound really cool) Could kick, deactivate kicker, change kick setting and activate the winch on the robot.

Coach: Talked strategy with the other teams before the match, keep track of the score and penalties, help the human players communicate (if the person on the trident wasn't paying attention) and sometimes would tell us what our alliance partners would do

Human player: Pulled the balls out of the corral and handed them to the person with the trident

We kept the same four people for the whole St. Louis Regional, and aside from robot problems, it worked fairly well. I cannot tell you about 2009 but in 2008 the driver was given more control of other functions as the Weapons Operator had a complex task.

Mike Soukup 27-12-2010 14:16

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988433)
Thanks to all of you that responded to my post, but now lets get back to the topic:

<snip of ridiculous suppositions>

That's how you try to get back on topic, with an asinine example? You seriously need to do a lot more listening to people who are trying to help and a lot less talking and bragging. But I doubt you'll listen to me either. You seem to have a "Peanuts" filter in your brain; adults try to give you great advice, but all you hear is "Wah wah wah wah wah wah."

Tom Ore 27-12-2010 15:34

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Soukup (Post 988779)
...a "Peanuts" filter in your brain...

That's funny...

Bomberofdoom 27-12-2010 16:05

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by davidthefat (Post 988281)
Im planning on so that we only need to send a human player and a driver. Yes I am confident that I can make it fully autonomous; the driver is there to manually override the robot if it goes haywire.

Reaaallly sorry for continuing the OT here and sorry for the long post. :rolleyes:

Hey David,

I believe I can safely say that I know where you're coming from with your confidence in achieving a fully autonomous robot, and like some of the CD programmers here, I wish you the best of luck in achieving that.

I've read several of your posts in this previous year and although I haven't seen any of your works personally, you've given me the impression of a very talented person, aside of being a talented programmer. I also assume that you are more experienced in this field, more than in mechanics.
As such a talented and experienced programmer, I'm quite sure you realize that by looking at previous years games and the diversity in the challenges and tasks in most of them, especially from every following year, you can see that it is very difficult to predetermine the challenges your TEAM'S robot will have to go up against. You may predict and prepare, and sometimes that works, but as for automation that is nearly impossible. There are a lot of FRC rules, field parameters and game element parameters and robot parameters and much more that you must take into consideration when forming up your TEAM'S strategy of the autonomous robot. But wait! Now you might know the rules, but you need to define GAME STRATEGY of your TEAM'S robot. Now that should put in some more considerations. Can you define all of the possibilities of different types of strategy-based tactics? Tons! Assuming you can define the solutions and implement them into the robot while in the competitions is very unlikely.

Speaking of parameters, somewhere deep in that huge paragraph i just worte (:p ), Can you really trust your TEAM'S robot's sensors and their accuracy? What if changes are made to the robot's physical model?

Out of experience (as myself and as observing the work of another talented programmer I personally know), you may have the whole game plan for programming and operating the fully autonomous robot, but there's a huge consideration you need to take in mind.

What if the rest of your TEAM cannot build the robot your TEAM's strategy is based on? What if certain MECHANIC components or ideas just don't work? A lot of time (and that is part of merely 6 WEEKS), and that also means sensor and manipulator calibration time, testing time and correction time (which includes going over the last two again), will be lost if that happens, and, sadly, as the young engineers and fragile humans we are, it happens to us a lot; And as a programmer, it's a real shame to think that you might have had the "ultimate code to rule them all!"...when even in practice you couldn't bring it out in the final product, the TEAM's robot.
I have already experienced in the past 4 years the disappointment when you realize you've written a great code for your robot's mechanical component, but it isn't built until the very last days, and sometimes is just scratched off the final product, and all that code has gone for the season.

Your autonomous robot relies HEAVILY on the REST OF YOUR TEAM to build the other parts of your robot successfully, that is the electrical and mechanical parts. If they can't achieve even the minimum required out of an FRC robot, your code is just virtual for the season, which is the most important period - not the off-season.
Virtual is beautiful and awesome, but reality is much more awesome, more practical and more accepted within the ranks of engineers and scientists in the field future science and engineering.

That was more of a personal statement for you David, and now to the point:

Unless you have 100%, or even 95% assurance you can achieve your goal with all it's prior requirements to achieve it, then go for it. But if you cannot assure it, it's best to lower your goals until you reach that 95-100% area of insurance of success.
Like others said, helping out your drivers, who will need to manually drive the robot in case of a "fully-autonomous emergency", by giving them easier and smoother controls, faster response, simpler manual control methods and more, which are much more achievable and mostly likely to guarantee your TEAM success when driving the robot. Like I've said, you're probably a very talented programmer and can probably think of very creative and useful ways to help out your TEAM in driving the robot, and hey!, maybe even when building it, say for mechanical tests!

...Though on the other hand you do have 8 programmers on your team, which is already too much... :S

Non-the-less, best of luck to you and your team in this year's season, and I hope to hear great stories from your side. :)

Randy Picolet 27-12-2010 16:54

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
With regard to davidthefat's controversial statements, please, let's all keep things graciously professional. Whether you agree with someone or not, gracious professionalism is even more important than competition, engineering, science, or technology, for none of the latter will succeed (or possibly even matter) in the absence of the former. Please avoid using derogatory adjectives about people, and stay in rational (if energetic) debate mode. And when you've made your point(s), assume you were heard, and let it go.

Learning how (and when) to sway someone's opinion (or be swayed) without alienation or offense is the most important skill you can learn in FIRST.

IKE 28-12-2010 10:08

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Back to on topic:

One thing to consider is that it generally takes a lot of practice or talent to be good at controlling a robot. Think about it from a video game perspective:

Video game skill tends to follow an "S" curve relative to time put in.
Generally the first few times you try something, you are trying to understand the controls, what does what, and how the system will react to inputs. That is one of the reasons some games have skill training sessions at the begininning of them typically 10-15 minutes to complete. The games tend to ramp up slowly. Then between 1-10 hrs, there is a rapid growth of scales until the user becomes quite proficient. After 10+ hours, you tend to level off, but many will still continue to improve. The same is true of other games and other skills. Mastery level though of a skill tends to be on the order of 1,000-10,000 hours of dedicated practice.

I gave up playing first person shooter games with most of my friends as they were in the 100-1000 hour camp when I was in teh 1-10 minute camp.

The bad news is, you will not likely get there in FIRST Robotics. Even the Michigan teams that do 2 districts, the MSC, and the Championship will at most see 44 qualifying matches and 42 elim matches (this would be 3 matching every round all the way through einstein finals). This is 86 matches or about 172 minutes of controlling your robot. Thus a little under 3 total hours of tele-op mode.

Because of this keeping a consistent driver, operator, human player is often key to having a strong competitive team.
Off-loading the required skills the driver/operator need is also very important.**
Whatever practice you can give your drive team is essential. If you do not have time or resources for a second bot, "finish" as early as possible. 2 hours of * dedicated practice *the day before ship day is more driving than many teams will see all season.
************************************************** ******
*A not so quick word on dedicated practice. Dedicated practice is not messing around with the robot for a couple of hours. We have only had a practice bot a couple of times, but they were wonderful things to have. Messing around is fine for the driver for 1 -2 batteries as they are trying to figure out the controls. After that, you should change over to drills. Practice key strategies and techniques.

In 2007, our drive team practiced a hang 9 in 2 drill. The team would hang 9 tubes on 3 rows of 3 in 2 minutes. Initially it took much longer that the 2 minutes (they could hang 4-5 in 2 minutes initially), but eventually they got to where they could hang all 9 tubes in 2 minutes. During the matches, they typically would only hang between 4-6 because of defense, and deploying ramps, but they had the ability to hang 9 and their timing was really commendable.

In 2010, we had a practice bot as well and we spent a Saturday cleaning the home zone. The assumptions was that there were 6 balls in the home zone after autonomous, and our bot was in the mid zone. They had to cross the bump and clean up all 6 balls plus hang in 2 minutes. The first couple of times, it took over 3 minutes, but eventually they got it down to 1:20 that morning. Again with defense, the results varried, but the practice clearly improved the level of performance that the drive team had.

In 2009, we kept very accurate data on human players and could tell when teams switched human players. This became a major factor in their ranking on our pick-list.

The dedicated practice principles are for any skilled base initiatives: sports, making things, brainstorming ideas, singing, writing, or racing a car.
************************************************** **
**Some more not so quick words on the secondary topic. Jim Z. taught me the first year I helped there team that due to the lack of practice, off-loading skills & talent based needs from the drive-team is imperitive. This would include using a gyro to help the driver drive straight at high speeds. Automatic shifting to off-load needs of the driver. Using "State" control for complicated things like multi-jointed arms that have to score at different levels. Target tracking to assist the operator scoring balls. All of this is fine and dandy, but is only possible with a good mechanical foundation.

As Jim says, great controls can make a good mechanical bot great, but a bad mechanical bot will be bad no matter how good the software is.

Last year, in auto-mode, you had the opportunity to score at least 3 balls in autonomous. The national average per team score per match was 1 pt. 1 pt!!! You could be 3x better than the national average if your team just consistently scored their 3 in auto-mode! If you were a little more daring, there was time and opportunity to score as many as 5-balls in automode. If you could score all 5 of those, you would have been one of the top 25 or so in the nation within the first 15 seconds. Think about that!

I bring this up because I know that many good teams tried to do this. I know we did. A few teams were even successful at kicking 5 into the home zone a few times. For the most part though, this was extremely limited due to 2 major factors. 1. repeatability (field, mechanical design, ball inflation, ball placement, robot starting position....) 2. Partners (not all partners will let you kick "their" 2 balls. Some won't even get out of the way of your 3!).

Jared Russell 28-12-2010 11:44

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
To answer the original question: the make up of our drive team is highly dependent on the nature of the game and of the robot we build.

Some games lend themselves towards logical divisions of "driving" and "operating" tasks. For example, in 2006, our machine had a multi-modal 2-speed drive train for one driver, and a turreted, multi-range shooter for the other.

But in 2010, our machine was much more integrated - the main driver both controlled the drive as well as the kicking (in a quick grab-aim-shoot scenario, we would rather only one person needs to do everything to cut down on latency and be able to snap off the shot when the bot was aligned). The operator only regulated the spin of the ball magnet and was responsible for the since-abandoned hanger. Because of this, our operator acted much like a coach for our driver, pointing out balls (it helps that he was absurdly tall) and providing situational awareness for the driver. This freed up the coach (me) to look at bigger picture things like the overall state of the field, and to communicate with our partners.

The last tidbit also extends to our use of the human player: some years (2009), the human player clearly needs to be quite athletic. But in other years (2010), the task is much more basic, so we put our sharpest student on the job in order to provide still more observation and coaching to our alliance.

Lastly, when it comes to the coach, we have used both students and adults. In 2009 and 2010, it was almost always me (an adult), simply because we have found that sometimes alliance partners don't tend to listen as well to students, and those games were the type where one bad partner can destroy a match. But in 2008, for example, there was really no need for an adult in the booth to coordinate strategy and keep partners on track.

EricH 28-12-2010 11:46

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
330's driver from 2005-2008 (and last year's drive coach) raced R/C cars before he got into robotics. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two drivers out there flew model aircraft. Practice with the robot is better, but in a pinch, you might be able to substitute some other "small" moving object.

rcmolloy 28-12-2010 12:00

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by IKE (Post 988955)
In 2007, our drive team practiced a hang 9 in 2 drill. The team would hang 9 tubes on 3 rows of 3 in 2 minutes. Initially it took much longer that the 2 minutes (they could hang 4-5 in 2 minutes initially), but eventually they got to where they could hang all 9 tubes in 2 minutes. During the matches, they typically would only hang between 4-6 because of defense, and deploying ramps, but they had the ability to hang 9 and their timing was really commendable.

In 2010, we had a practice bot as well and we spent a Saturday cleaning the home zone. The assumptions was that there were 6 balls in the home zone after autonomous, and our bot was in the mid zone. They had to cross the bump and clean up all 6 balls plus hang in 2 minutes. The first couple of times, it took over 3 minutes, but eventually they got it down to 1:20 that morning. Again with defense, the results varried, but the practice clearly improved the level of performance that the drive team had.

IKE,

These are two awesome ways to no only train your drivers but also map out the game as well. We have never had a good mock up field to practice with and were delayed by a few factors. (Snow :mad:) I would really love to try and make this a priority for this season because it gives initiative to the subteams to finish quick and efficiently.

JVN 28-12-2010 12:10

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by EricH (Post 988978)
330's driver from 2005-2008 (and last year's drive coach) raced R/C cars before he got into robotics.

Brief aside for our viewers at home... Shane is arguably one of the best drivers in the history of FRC. Watching him drive was quite the experience...

-John

thefro526 28-12-2010 15:21

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by EricH (Post 988978)
330's driver from 2005-2008 (and last year's drive coach) raced R/C cars before he got into robotics. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two drivers out there flew model aircraft. Practice with the robot is better, but in a pinch, you might be able to substitute some other "small" moving object.

It seems like this is a common trend in FRC. Most of the better drivers I've met have some experience with RC Cars, Planes, Racing Simulators, Carting, Dirt biking, Skating, Competitive driving etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rcmolloy (Post 988981)
IKE,

These are two awesome ways to no only train your drivers but also map out the game as well. We have never had a good mock up field to practice with and were delayed by a few factors. (Snow :mad:) I would really love to try and make this a priority for this season because it gives initiative to the subteams to finish quick and efficiently.

(Our Practice Field is always open ;) )

Chris is me 28-12-2010 15:42

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by thefro526 (Post 989008)
It seems like this is a common trend in FRC. Most of the better drivers I've met have some experience with RC Cars, Planes, Racing Simulators, Carting, Dirt biking, Skating, Competitive driving etc.

While I don't want to say Shaker's driver is one of the best in FRC, I can definitely vouch for having RC helicopter drivers as FRC drivers. He was great after he had a regional of drive practice. Hopefully he gets more this year...

rcmolloy 28-12-2010 16:01

Re: Drive Team Configuration
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by thefro526 (Post 989008)
(Our Practice Field is always open ;) )

Ahhh Dustin. I'll hold you to that one. We will try and make an appearance more than once this year.


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