[bigbeezy]

our lead mentor (who used to be our drive coach but this year he decided it was time to let a student do that as well) picks the drive team. Now every year around week5 we have a written drivers test which covers pretty much everything in the manual, but mainly focusing on the rules associated with driving.

Something most of our team has yet to figure out, this test also shows how committed you are in being a driver. If you take the time to read the rules then you can get a great boost in "street credit."

Once the robot is drivable, we have driver practice. Here we let anyone that wants to the ability to test drive the robot.

Then our mentors sit down and review the written test scores, and how the students handled the robot and being with different co-drivers. One of the most important things in driving is communication. Eventually a drive team can anticipate what the other is going to do, but initially (like a the first 1 or 2 regionals) they must talk everything out.

Another big part of driving is can they keep their cool in a tough situation. Over-reacting and getting frustrated can spell death in a close match.

Usually by mid-week6, we would like to be earlier, they make their decisions. from then on the drive team are the only one who drive so they can get as much practice as possible.

IMHO (this is not fully agreed upon by some on our team) a driver should be someone who has put in the wrench time and knows the robot. Maybe they can't take it apart and put it back together as well as the pit crew, but they should still know how everything works (at least pertaining to what they control). The pit crew can usually watch a match and see when something goes wrong but cont always figure out what is wrong. The driver is the one at the controls. Just like NASCAR, the driver tells the pit crew if the cars too tight or too loose. Not to mention that at regionals the pit crew cant come on the field in-between finals matches so the drive team better know how to fix the robot. But thats just my opinion.