Quote:
Originally Posted by AustinSchuh
I've always held the same opinion. In 2012, we gave our driver the button to climb the bump. He would always stop, hit the button, and then climb the bump. When we took it away from him and gave it to the manipulator, we were able to climb the bump at full speed. It might be harder to train two people to work together, but in my experience, it is worth it.
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I'd say it's more of a robot-complexity determined thing. If all my robot does is drive, shoot, and pick up something (and you're doing these things in a very simple way), in many cases that second driver is slowing things down. At least, that's what 2220 found this last year. Our second driver essentially served as a second coach and strategy analyst embedded in the drive team. Worked out pretty well in my opinion.
In comparison, 2011 was a fantastic year for two drivers for us (when the robot was working), because we were running a swerve drive and driving that was a big change for our driver, who was used to tank-style drive.
With some robots, there's a clear decision to be made, but with the majority I think it's really a team preference thing. Your "second driver" doesn't need to have their hands on the controls to be useful during a match.