I'm an arm driver and Co-President of my team. I'm used to stress but driving is just crazy. As a driver, so many kids have the hopes and dreams of a robot they spent 6 weeks of their blood, sweat and tears resting in your hands. Every time we're out there I want to drive the bot to the limit of its ability to live up to my team mates hopes. Of course things never always work out right(popping two yellow balls in our last match last year
) and you have to go on.
The pressure though of driving the arm is nothing compared to driving the robot, the arm(well forklift this year) is much simpler to drive. It only goes up and down and has a couple other small functions. I knew driving the bot would be a bit much for me. So this year, I've got a new driver with me and he's an old friend, but he's also new and fresh. Its going to take a couple of matches i'm sure to get into our tetra tower frenzy/groove/thing.
Of course as a big engineer on my team, I also don't want to see the robot get destroyed. We've built a tough bot(slamming it into walls at 12 feet per second wheee! and a spring-loaded-knock-away tetra grabber) but some bots really hit hard. And if anything actually goes wrong on the field -- i'll be praying that our treads don't fall off every moment -- I'm sure i'll go insane.
Besides all that though, I love to compete. I love to finally have the opportunity to test my metal(pun intended) against other teams. To be down there with the bot I spent so many sleepless nights designing and building is an honor.
Just remember, always congratulate your drivers, they have a hell of a time. And remember if the robot stops moving in the middle of the field, or starts twitching, or slams into walls randomly, its probably not because your driver finally went insane(although it is a possibility) it could be the robot.