Correlation between driving skill and practice field availability

[Laaba 80]

Having a practice field definitely helps, but you can be successful without one. My senior year, I drove for Breakaway, and I only got to drive the robot the night before ship, in an area that wasnt big enough for me to get the robot up to full speed. We also didnt have a practice robot. We went 30-13 on the season, won a regional, and made it to the semi finals at champs. I do wish we would have had a practice field/the time to practice.

09 and 11 had about the same amount of drive practice, but didnt quite have the same success.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Practice field + Practice bot + Iteration = awesome sauce

Re-quoted for truth.

I think a better title for the thread might be "Correlation between driving skill and driving practice"

I mean, think about it: Don't you get better at something you do often? Why do you think a 45 year old car driver is so much more likely to not have accidents that, say, an 18 year old?

It has been said that it takes 5,000 hours of doing something to get really good at it (after which improvements are negligible). But the first hours bring a greater relative improvement than the last hours.

If you driver practices several hundred hours, they might not win a competition, but they will surely get the robot to perform to its highest capabilities. (Manipulator operators as well).

[Jared Russell]

You don't need a 27 x 54 foot regulation field, but yes - having an adequately-sized practice space and the time to practice (with either your early-completed competition bot or with a practice bot) has a strong correlation with winning.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Practice field + Practice bot + Iteration = awesome sauce

Exactly what I wanted to say.

The more you drive the faster you learn what does and doesn't work as well as where the weak points in your design are.

This is why we made 5 improvements between our 1st pass roller claw and the final championship version. We found the weak points in practice and iterated until we had it right.

If you can take care of this learning at practice rather than at the regional you are ahead of the game.

[GCentola]

This past year, we had a decent amount of practice prior to our competition. I absolutely know this helped. Even though we didn't have a full field, we had a large area of carpet and we built a rack of pegs. Putting in a few hours of tube hanging definitely helped becasue we went in to our first competition already knowing the motions of hanging tubes. We don't build a practice robot (time contraints) but we have used prior years robots to drive before our new base is up and running.

In 2010, our drivers had almost no practice whatsoever, so everything was learned at competition. With the 2011 season being my first year on the Drive Team (as Coach), I would definitely say the pre-competition practice helped me, and our drivers. I would guess that it helped our Human Player, but our cafeteria had lower ceilings so I don't know what it was like to practice throwing.

[slijin]

Just to continue chiming in, I agree that driving practice definitely helps improve driving skill. For Logomotion, we decided that our traditional 6WD tank wouldn't have enough maneuverability for the game, and switched to mecanums; it took at least a few hours for our drivers to get a very good handle on the system. Scoring practice was also very important.

One of the most important - and useful - things about build season driver practice is that your drivers get to know the robot and the field. Mechanisms intended to do a certain thing may need to be operated in a certain manner to get them to work, especially with the field; god knows how long it took us to figure out how to hang tubes effectively, despite our arm and roller's efficiency.

We don't have a dedicated practice space, but we do have access to a couple of supply closets where we store carpets, and we tend to leave field pieces in the back of our lab, and bring them out during meetings.

[Tommy F.]

We have space to build a full sized field, so our drivers were practicing every chance they got (which wasn't much) during the build season.

However, one of my requests for next season was that we build a practice robot, because I realized, the time from ship day to competition is a time you could be practicing with your robot. And even at Championships, I realized that the gap between your last regional and Championships was also time we could have spent practicing.

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by Basel A

Related? Very likely. Does having a practice field cause you to perform better? Not necessarily, but likely.

It's pretty likely that teams that perform better on a regular basis are also teams that seek out additional resources, which could include a practice field. Basically, the teams that have practice fields are probably also the teams that work harder.

I second this.

Remember that correlation is not causation. Ice cream sales increase during summer, as do child abductions. It does not mean that more ice cream sales cause child abductions nor that child abductions cause more ice cream sales.


However, yes, its very likely your driver will be better.

[J_Miles]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

Remember that correlation is not causation.

I'd like to reiterate this point.

While your observation of correlation is, as an observation, not without merit, one must remember that correlation, as usual, does not imply causation.

There are a great deal of factors that contribute to driving skill, but, since your original post focuses purely on the practice factor, I'll address that only. The majority of this thread has focused on driving practice within a certain specific season with a robot. Before considering this, consider that a great way to gauge ability of drivers is competition before the new build season even begins. Put simply, it would be great to have a full practice field and practice robot for the 2012 game that drivers could practice with; however, the ability to deal with pressure of competition and general driver awareness, which are both factors that contribute a great deal to driver skill, can be developed BEFORE the new season's robot is even built.

For my team, drivers are almost always seniors who drive for one year. In that sense, each season the team brings in "rookie" drivers. That said, after the regular competition season ends and the senior drivers graduate, prospective drivers for the next season are selected to drive at offseason events, and, in that way, can be judged for general ability while simultaneously getting a number of matches under their belts. Even if the following season's robot is different in every way, the experience of driving at one, two, three, or even four off-season events can be invaluable in that it gives coaches/mentors an idea of what students are suited to driving under conditions that simply cannot be judged in a practice facility.

In reference to the original observation that practice field availability has some effect on driving skill, I'd like to refer back to Basel's comment, essentially that teams who have access to practice fields are often those who go looking for extra resources, are often teams with the manpower and proven efficiency to build a practice bot, and to utilize them effectively. So, while it is not necessary to have access to practice facilities to be skilled at driving, there is frequently a connection between the two.

[plnyyanks]

I would also agree that having practice space/time has a huge impact on driver abilities and comfort. Even from experienced on my team, there are years when we had more/bigger practice spaces, and we tended to better in those years. There's really no replacement for practising driving your robot with other robots playing intense defence and loud music blasting in the background. At least in my experience, that is, doing that has coincided with our better performing seasons.

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

Remember that correlation is not causation

All I have to say to this:

(http://xkcd.com/925/)
And one more: http://xkcd.com/552/

[J_Miles]

Originally Posted by plnyyanks

All I have to say to this:

Funny, isn't it, that no matter what the discussion, it is almost certain that XKCD can be quoted successfully and relevantly?

[Chexposito]

on our team, the programmers find most of the problems with the robot. mainly because we're the ones who are working with the robot when it breaks. but it's good because the more we find before the 6 weeks are up, the less we have to deal with in the competition.

[Chris is me]

How can you guys say that correlation doesn't imply causation with regards to practice time and driving skill? Of course practice time will increase driving skill.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

How can you guys say that correlation doesn't imply causation with regards to practice time and driving skill? Of course practice time will increase driving skill.

While there is causation, it's not the correlation that proves it. It's the reasons that are so obvious, you don't need to list them. The OP wanted to show that great teams have practice fields; that doesn't mean much. I think he simply needs to explain those reasons and show how driving skill is ultimately an important factor in success.

[Cory]

I would argue there is no better way to be successful in FRC than to have access to a practice field and have a practice robot.