[sciencenerd]

As a driver for my team both this year and last year, I agree that knowing the rules is a must. It simply isn't practical for the coach to have to dictate to a driver every little move they must make to stay within the rules. If you are going to do that, you might as well just make your coach your driver. Also, if your drivers are uninformed it tends to reflect very poorly on your team. However, this point has been sufficiently covered already in this thread.

What I would like to bring up is: exactly how much does a driver need to know? I agree that the drivers should know all the rules in the "The Game" portion of the manual, because they are all directly relevant. And I agree that the more a driver knows about the robot, the better. However, does it actually help to know the exact dimensions of the field in feet? Do drivers need to know, exactly, the elevation of the center goal? Certainly a general idea is good to have, but I know when I'm on the field in the heat of competition I don't think "hmm, I wonder exactly what velocity I need to shoot the ball at to get through the center goal from now. I know, I'll do some force calculations including the mass of the ball and the height of the goal, factoring in air resistance, to find out." No. I line up on the goal as best I can, and pull the trigger.

Certainly drivers should know how a poof ball handles, but unless you're smarter than I am the way to do that is through using them over and over again until you get a feel for them, not memorizing the weight. If your goal is to get a feel for how well people looked through the rules, then that quiz is a great one. However, if you're looking for the rules that will help a driver, some of these don't seem too significant to me.

And again, I think the rules quiz is an excellent idea, our team does something very similar. I just want to bring up another viewpoint.