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Re: Question How to mentor Driver FRC Team
Enhancement as it was called earlier in my opinion should take place NOW not just after drivers are selected. There actually is a large amount that drivers or potential drive teams can do in the off-season. So much that our team has a separate sub-team devoted to strategy and drive.
Team building activities: working together and developing good techniques to handle stressful situations.
Off-Season events: You can drive in your shop for hours and hours but that is like practicing in a vacuum. Until you have other robots on the field and all sorts of complex interactions you will not be fully trained. Also some people excel under these conditions and others do not. I have seen some drivers who practice really well but perform different when it counts and the opposite.
Learn moves: There are certain moves that we have picked up on over the years. For example there is a right and a wrong way to push a robot. There are ways to block other robots or drive in a specific way that actually makes your robot perform better.
Communication: I would recommend spending at least 2 or 3 meetings working on this. We have developed several fun games and exercises that really help the students improve in this area.
Robot Comprehension: Each robot has a certain feel to it. They drive and operate differently even if they have the same drive types. A good driver can tell if the robot is ten pounds heavier or if there is a problem with one of the mechanisms or programing. At this point no one has any idea what mechanisms or drive systems will be in this years game so try to expose them to as many types as possible. The added bonus to this skill is the drive team can give an accurate diagnosis of the robot condition to pit crew after every match.
Strategy: Play board games or challenge the perspective drivers in some way to work on finding a creative solution to problems. We have simulated a pre-match strategy meeting to look at what topics should be covered and how best to utilize pre match communication between the teams. This also helps us pick out our student coach.
This process is definitely not only focused around the robot. Actually I think it is 50/50 most of those traits of an ideal driver that have been mentioned can be taught and learned. At the end of this training process every year we have students tell us that some silly game we played or some topic we discussed months ago helped them a lot during competitions. Also this is far from a complete list there really are just so many things that can be done in advance to train drivers.
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