[zinthorne]

I was one of the drivers this past season for my team. We had a drive team mentor who quizzed us on all the rules, and ran time trials and drive tests. Example: one test was see who could score the most cycles by themselves in 2 minutes and 20 seconds. The driver could decide how they wanted to drive, whether they would truss or not, and what not.
We were also given many scenarios and asked what we would do.
Coming from a students perspective, and having been a driver here is some advice I would give:
-Drive time makes a huge difference, so give each perspective driver to do whatever he/she wants with the robot for a set amount of time. Make no rules for them, and let them get accustomed to the robot. (During this time, see how much they improve, because it will show a general relation to how quickly they will improve in a competition)
-Look to see who drives the robot on the edge of the line, going as close as they can to being out of control, but still having control. If a driver drives the robot at top speed and as hard as they can in practice, then they will do it in a competition. If the driver does not drive the robot to its full extent in practice, then they will not drive the robot to its full extent in competition, which may lose a match.
-All drivers should know every mechanism on the robot nad know what they can do when which each individual part. Many times I see drivers not use all the mechanisms on their robot which causes them to not do as well.