Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor
I would prefer my driver to be knowledgeable about the game [and] strategy-minded.
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This is extremely important. The driver must know every aspect of the game inside and out. There are times when the coach might be micromanaging something else and in those instances the driver must know both what to do in terms of the game and whatever strategy the alliance has decided on beforehand.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor
An outstanding, if overlooked, quality of a great driver is the ability to do exactly as told, when told, without second-guessing.
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Be careful about that, now. I can list off a few instances where my coach told me to do something that was against the rules, or I felt could have ended up in me breaking the rules or breaking our gripper or any number of other things. The driver absolutely
cannot just be a dumb conduit for instructions from the coach, a simple joystick monkey. He has to be able to think and act for himself, both to act as a check on the coach and, as stated above, in case the coach is preoccupied for a moment.
I've told my coach before, it's like, I am miles away from needing a coach to play the game - me and my friend are more than good enough to find and pick up a tube, you don't need to tell us that. What I need are time updates and strategy updates. If something changes, then that is something I will probably not know on my own.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor
Edit: A key skill that drivers need is the ability to diagnose problems. If the drivers have little to no interaction with the design and construction of the actual robot and its subsystems, then when (not if) catastrophes occur, the driver cannot provide insightful, useful information.
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In my opinion, if the individual has no somewhat-detailed knowledge of the robot then they have no business being on drive team. You don't necessarily have to know exactly how it was built and how to re-build every piece of it, but you do have to know its limits and how to check and fix parts of it if necessary.
In my case, I helped program a lot of the robot, so if I didn't like how it was driving or if I felt it was turning too fast or something I would just go ahead and change the value that would give me what I wanted, as opposed to trying to explain what the problem was and having everyone involved scratch their head for ten minutes before it got fixed. Just little things like this are extremely important.
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As for rewards now, I absolutely hate the notion of giving it to Seniors just because they have "earned it." It's an absolutely ridiculous notion - drive team is all about skill and the ability to think quickly and under pressure, not whoever has been on the team the longest. The two drivers this year were myself (a junior) on the drivetrain and my friend (a sophomore) on the elevator/manipulator. This is better than just giving it to seniors (who it was very clear were far worse than my friend and I, even they admitted it) particularly because now I have an extra year of practice and my friend will have two by the time he is a senior.