[AmoryG]

It's no coincidence that many of the best drivers come from powerhouse teams such as 111, 16, 1114, and 1503. All these teams are well organized, have more resources, and probably have a better educated student and mentor body than most teams. That said, these teams probably have tighter schedules, practice robots and full playing field, or anything else that allows their drive team the luxury of weeks to practice before competition. Usually the drivers with the most practice, especially with a practice field and other robots to compete with, will perform better in competition.

This has always been the case for my team, which never seems to finish the robot until the day before we ship. No one on my team had much time to practice with the robot, but I being a student programmer, had plenty of time to test our code before we shipped. I also was more accustomed with the control system than pretty much any eligible driver my team. Because of this, I was always one of the team's drivers, and had far more time to compete with it than anyone else.