Quote:
Originally Posted by EricPalmatier
Can you elaborate? A scored test, in conjunction with an interview and practical driving test has always served well to accurately assess a driver's knowledge and ability. There are obviously other things we look at, but it certainly helps to know the candidates seriousness and overall knowledge of the game.
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We don't really care how good a driver candidate is at driving their first or second time behind the sticks. All of them won't be very good at that time. The majority of them will be lucky to hit a wall less than 3 times. If we tried a course with cones or something, the cones would likely be destroyed on the first run. I've spent days pre-season monitoring underclassmen driving in the basement. It's a scary thing to be standing on the field with them behind the sticks.
We also don't think a written rules test is important, since we both read ALL of the arena/game/robot rules several times with the team over the course of the strategy sessions, AND we can train the driver with drills or such.
Basically, anything that we can measure and score, we can also train, so we don't care about it in our driver decisions.
The real driver test is how the driver candidate handles themselves during offseason competitions, VEX, and OCCRA. We've learned far more valuable knowledge about their driving skills, dealing with pressure, and dealing with people from these events in the fall than we could ever learn from a written rules test or obstacle course test. I could probably tell you more about a few of our driver candidates driving styles and +-'s than they could.