[DampRobot]

I'll second what M. Lillie's said about the whole drive team needing to be best friends. If everyone on the drive team is just awesome friends, then they'll have a great time, be more relaxed under pressure, forgive themselves for mistakes more readily, and generally have a sense of camaraderie. I've also been on drive teams where some of the members really didn't get along that well (personal rivalry, jealousy, incompatible personalities), and it can get toxic pretty fast. Instead of moving forward, a lot of the post match stuff will be playing the blame game and there'll be more negative pressure pre match.

Another thing a lot of people forget about is that the drive team needs to know basically everything about the robot and how it breaks (including software). They're the last people to interact with the bot before showtime, and sometimes the only people to react to stuff that comes up in queuing.

A lot of people believe that "anyone" can be made a good driver as long as they're dedicated and responsible enough. While that may be theoretically true, I think innate skill and the abilities to make decisions and "go for it" in a match usually trump dedication (at least for us). If someone already has a great field sense and can make the robot do what they want, I'm willing to overlook a bit of immaturity or irresponsibility. Anyway, dedication does not necessarily make a good driver. I'm one of the most dedicated people on the team, and still can't drive the robot without crashing it into walls.

Despite having a large team by some standards, it's always been pretty clear who should drive, given there's a limited number of people who show up enough, have the ability, want to, etc. We've never really had to do a formal selection process.