[samthesnake]

I'm in agreement with much of what those above me have said. 4256 has been fortunate to have a practice bot 4 of 5 years (every year since rookie season). We build them completely identical and spend the first few days after the robot is built debugging with the drivers on our full-size field, and we continue that until we feel we are ready for just the drivers to practice. We then make them master the button layouts. After that, we run practice matches after auto mode as much as possible, and the drivers work with the strategy team closely to figure out what we want them practicing. We get as much time with the gym as possible (our school has lots of activities, but most night the practice gym is available). We pick our drivers with them knowing full well what a commitment driving is, as most nights they are there alone through late hours of the evening. In short, we want them to get as much training as possible because a good driver is a humongous competitive advantage, and we try to increase our advantage as much as possible in all aspects of the team.