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Unread 09-11-2011, 10:13
ks_mumupsi ks_mumupsi is offline
Drive Coach...
AKA: Kinsuk Shah
None #2016
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Rookie Year: 2000
Location: NJ
Posts: 177
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Re: Good vs. Great Drive Teams

After coaching for 3 years and seeing how having 2 coaches in the same season impacts the team.. I have a few things to add

im surprised this hasnt been mentioned yet or maybe i just missed it.
consistency in language.... if your drive team thinks you are saying something and you mean something different thats tough. You need ot build that communication during practice. You need to focus on the small details in practice. If you say arm up/down or in-out it can mean different things to different people. Getting clear communication across the team is very important.

I think the second thing is the driver and operator need to understand each other without having to talk. There is not enough time to communicate what you need to be doing on the field, it needs to be intuitive.

Third is the control system.. We focused this year on building as intuitive a control system for the operator as possible, so that it was never a question for the operator of how high/low the arm needed to be or so.

Alot of the other things everyone has mentioned already. I will add to practice, practice against other robots, we try to run a previous years bot playing defense and the current years robot to get the drivers used to have other robots and obstacles on the field. That unknown variable of not knowing what the other team will do is very important in practice. practice in ideal settings doesnt help too much. This is why teams get better as competitions progress they start building an idea of what the other team will likely do.

hopefully that helps..
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Team 56 2000-2007 (Student/Vol.)
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