Quote:
Originally Posted by Jetweb
One success case that comes to mind is Qbranch on 1024 in 2008, took the robot all the way to Einstein and had one of the best autonomous routines of the year. ( of course he may be part robot himself so Im not sure if that is a good example  ) |
Come on, really, there's no documented proof I was in fact part of the robot..
But seriously, I can say that this was an extremely stressful position to be in. You have absolutely zero free time at competitions, especially early in the season as you're either driving or making code changes or maybe having somebody yell at you to go eat because you haven't taken a break to eat all day
.
Also, when it comes to graduation time, remember you're double-investing in an individual. If your programmer and driver happen to reside in the same graduating team member, you just lost your programmer and driver.
However, there
definitely are benefits. You get instant firsthand feedback on your software that affects driving and functional operation of the robot (i.e. autoshifting). Also, during autonomous, you get a great feel for how your robot performs, or if any constants are off a little and need to be edited.
At the end of the day, I'd say the benefits outweigh the costs. If you have any more specific questions I haven't touched on, I'd be happy to go into greater detail.
Thanks for the compliment, and GO TEAMS!
-q