Driving Test

[the man]

I searched and found nothing realating to this subject.
What are some good ways to test your team and find a driver?

[Sean Raia]

Have people on your team drive your robot when its done, and see who does it well.
We once had somebody run around and the people driving the robot had to follow them without crashing.

[Jones571]

Along with a driving test we have a written rules test and attendance requirement for our engineering principals presentation.

[Sean Raia]

And obviously they should talk to some one on software to know all the controls and features.

[MrForbes]

And everyone on the drive team needs to get along well with eachother, work well together, and they need to know the robot inside out so they can fix whatever might break during eliminations.

[Sean Raia]

Originally Posted by squirrel

And everyone on the drive team needs to get along well with eachother, work well together, and they need to know the robot inside out so they can fix whatever might break during eliminations.

Not only know the robot inside out, but the rules as well.

[EricH]

The driver is nothing without the coach and the operator. If the three do not work well together for some reason, then you will not do well. A fair portion of 330's success from 2005-2008 is due to the fact that our driver, operator, and coach worked extremely well together.

Rules knowledge is important too. If a driver gets a lot of penalties, then they need to know why they got them. Also, if you have a question about a call, then the driver, operator, or human player needs to be the one to bring it up to the head ref. They can't do that if they don't know the rules.

Driving ability is nice, but not everything. It's the easiest to test, but there are finer aspects that can make life miserable, like coming back towards you front-first. It's easy to get messed up doing that.

[engunneer]

We used to have the driver operator pair mill a circle using our shop milling machine. One student got the X axis, and the other got the Y. They were both timed and measured for accuracy.

It encouraged them to plan strategy ahead of time, communicate to each other about conditions and adapt on the fly.

We also did some obstacle courses with RC cars, rigged so that one person had speed, and the other had steering. This was similarly a timed event.

[rsisk]

Here is a link to a spreadsheet that contains 200+ questions based on this year's rules. Build quizzes from these questions for your drive team.

2010 Rules Question Bank

[carbuff2228]

you should definitely have a quiz for the drivers so that they know all the rules. Also they need to be able to communicate with the coach and the human player effectively

[Chris is me]

My driver testing theory I break down into teams that can practice for at least a week, and teams that can't.

For teams that don't have practice resources, throw all the driver candidates behind the controls for an hour or so and have a group consisting of the drive coach and other non-drive team parties decide who's best. Eliminate obviously uncooperative people who would not make mature drivers though.

For teams that can practice for a week or more, team leadership should pick drivers before they even touch the controls. Maybe even before Kickoff. Nearly anyone can be trained to be a good driver, but few can be trained to be a mature driver that stays cool under pressure. A pair of students that are the most mature and level headed that work well with the coach should be selected and practice should be done early and often.

This is all my opinion, and disclaimer, I've never trained a group of drivers or anything. Working on 1714 as a tactician, the drivers on my team were already fantastic and I had no part in picking or training them or anything.

[thefro526]

Here's a thread from last year on the Subject: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=72913

Choosing Drivers isn't as straight forward of a task as most people think. It involves a lot of factors that don't even involve the ability to drive a robot. In my experiences I've found that one can teach just about any kid how to handle a robot given enough time and practice, but you can't teach someone how to be a "Good Driver". On my team specifically, we find all of the people interested and then test them on Game Knowledge and Driver Ability and then also look at how dedicated they are.

One thing to remember though is that a good Driver, Operator or Human Player is only a Member of a Good Driveteam. You may find some kid who's a complete ringer behind the sticks but they can't work with other people to save their life. Teamwork and compatible personalities are essential on a driveteam. My personal opinion on the subject is that you should pick the best drive team, and not just the best Driver, Operator, and Human Player. In my experience, the best drive teams are often those that are made up of people who are friends - I'm not saying they have to be best friends but it seems that the more you know about a person's style and personality the more easily you can work with them.

Also, just another thing I'm big on is appearance and attitudes of Driveteam Members. A lot of the time, when people think of your team they will think of your drivers because that's who they see on the field. Sometimes, when driver's are unprofessional, or hard to work with, or just childish, this can work against you when it comes to formulating alliances for eliminations or even cost you matches. I know when I played the role of Alliance Captain for 816 in 2008 and 2009 a lot of my selections were based on Drivers and how well they worked with us or could work with us, versus how good their robot was.

Edit:

Something I forgot too, is an understanding of rules and game play. Driveteam members should understand game play rules inside and out, or at least the ones that pertain to them in the case of the Human Player, and be able to play well within those rules. In my career as a Driver, Operator, Human Player, and Coach over the last few years, nothing has saved me more than an understanding of the rules and game dynamics. The more you know, the more you have to use in a match and you can come up with creative strategies.

-Also, anyone on the Drive Team should be able to think quickly under pressure and make decisions and stick by them. Sometimes, when unforeseen circumstances arise (Penalties, Broken Robots, Damaged Game peice, etc..) a quick decision is the difference between a win and a lose.