Question How to mentor Driver FRC Team

[yara92]

This is a Question about Driving FRC Robot?
Every year we have problem to choose the drivers for the Robot?
As a mentor for our team I wont to discuss this issue about :
1. Who many driver is butter for the team?
2. Who to give them exercise?
3. Is there any program for the PC that help them to exercise?
4. What characteristic should have the driver such as patience natural speedily?
5. Anything ells ??

The best amount of drivers for a team is 2. One to drive the wheels, and another to drive the attachments.

Have your drivers practice anywhere, but driving on carpet is preferred.

The best practice is from actual driving.

Drivers need to be able to listen to their team mates and the coach. They also need to spend lots of time practicing.

Last thing, anyone can be drivers, but that doesn't mean everyone should. Make sure to select 2 drivers for the competition, and only allow them to drive. It makes them better at driving.

[ttldomination]

So, being a relatively fresh drive team coach, I often struggle with these questions myself, but here's what I've found in my short career.

(1) I've found that having one drive team makes things a lot easier, in almost every aspect. Students on one drive team get practice, they get used to each other, they develop a nice work flow, and the bond between them continually grows.

(2) Well, what do you do when you study for math? You sit down and do problems. Likewise, in FRC, you need to get up there and drive the robot. Hang tubes, score goals, achieve objective x until y, and get better. It might sound mundane, but for all the time I've spent driving an FRC robot, I've never once found it mundane.

(3) I'm not aware of anything too good, but you might want to check out the 5th Gear Program put out my Lockheed Martin. I'm not sure how realistic it is, but it's something.

(4) I think that drivers need to understand the robot, its limits, their own limits, and the game. While drivers need to be able to listen to coaches, it's important for them to stay on their own toes.

[Mr. Lim]

They need to be extremely dedicated. Arguably the most dedicated members of the team, willing to spend hours every day driving the robot, and repeating drills over and over. They need to be perfectionists, understanding that they are never done. Even if they've become "good" at driving, there is always more they can work on. They should never need to be asked to practice, or to do a drill again, or pestered to practice more. They need to want to do it themselves, and get angry and hold others accountable when for some reason they can't practice, or something is preventing them from practicing.

Trying to find members who can drive a robot skillfully and who possess the above skills is really hard.

In fact, most teams have a hard time finding 2 people who fit the bill.

...but if you can find them, it's probably the second best way to realize massive improvements in performance of your FRC team on the field.

[Jon Stratis]

I think one of the biggest problems a team can have is selecting the drivers. I would highly encourage the creation of a set of guidelines so that everyone knows ahead of time how drivers are selected, and what they have to do to be considered. For example:
- Do you want to allow critical pit members (those who will be fixing the robot between matches) to be on the drive team? This can often be a conflict as teams want to discuss strategy before the match, when you may need to be fixing something.
- Do you want to see a certain level of commitment (meeting attendance %) from your drivers?
- Do you want to limit your drivers to only upperclassmen, since they won't have a chance to drive after they graduate, or go with the best, even if it's a freshman?
- Do you want to have some general behavior guidelines in place, allowing the team leaders to deny the spot to someone who tends to act inappropriately or get angry easily (remember, the drivers are a large part of the team's public image)?

Once that's out of the way, Figure out how you're going to select from the pool of potential drivers. Is it reasonable to have a game-related driving test? This year, for example, you could time each potential driver as they score a logo, and the person with the quickest time might be the best option. You could also set up an obstacle course they have to maneuver the robot through, again a timed event. If you have a practice robot, or one working from previous years, you can have them go up against that robot playing an opposing role (defense or offense, depending on your team's design/strategy in each particular year) with some timed goal - scoring a tube, or just getting past them.

Run your test(s) multiple times per person so they form an average performance - you can even plot out the data points in excel, show standard deviation, all sorts of fun stuff. By having these solid data points, you remove any subjective feelings and impressions from the process, and hopefully avoid any drama from the selection (of the sort "he got chosen for the drive team because the mentor likes him the best, but I'm a better driver").

This past year, we ran a trial like this before our first competition, and the results were very clear - we had several people who all had around the same time, with similar standard deviations, and one person who had a much better time with a much smaller standard deviation. She ended up being the driver, and did a fantastic job (earning us a spot at Champs for the first time in team history).

[Peyton Yeung]

I'm a junior on the Technokats and this will (hopefully) be my 3rd year on the drive team. Team 45 typically has a driver (robot placement on field) and an operator (what the robot is doing). Every year the mentors look over the game manual and make several 45 question tests. Any drive team candidates must score a 90% or greater to be considered for drive team. They also need to have attended at least 50% of practices/build sessions. Typically in the technokats, two students that have a certain chemistry pair up for drive team. This year we took the first regional's practice matches as tryouts. I do not advise this. Before your first regional I would have tryouts. Try placing a person on different positions. You may find that they are really excellent at something you/they hadn't thought of.

My freshman year we had 1 drive team. The driver and operator were seniors and had extensive knowledge of rules. They were also sub team leads so they knew the capabilities of the robot.
My sophomore year a freshman and myself were the primary drivers. We also had a secondary team in case we for some reason could not attend a competition. That was the year we had almost daily drive practices with our backup bot and 7am Saturday practices. We also recorded data after each practice match and saw that we had improved greatly from the start of the season until the end.

We really didn't need to be told to practice and in fact we were often begged if we would let the sub teams work on the robot a little.

As for if the drivers should be an important sub team member that is up to you. Most of our mechanical team members said they'd baby the robot too much so as not to hurt it

The qualities of good drivers can include

• being a good listener
• hard working
• committed
• having an natural affinity doesn't hurt

[avanboekel]

Originally Posted by yara92

This is a Question about Driving FRC Robot?
Every year we have problem to choose the drivers for the Robot?
As a mentor for our team I wont to discuss this issue about :
1. Who many driver is butter for the team?
2. Who to give them exercise?
3. Is there any program for the PC that help them to exercise?
4. What characteristic should have the driver such as patience natural speedily?
5. Anything ells ??

1) We always have 2 teams of 2 for driving the robot. One team is the 'A' team, and the other is the backup. 1 driver does the wheels, and the other does that years mechanism. (claw, kicker, etc.)

2) Give them practice by having them drive either last years bot, or put together a kitbot just for practice driving. This will be helpful later as well as a defense bot to practice against.

3) 5th gear is a good program for practicing.

4) The people you want as your drivers for competition aren't always the ones who are the best at driving the bot. You want somebody who is dependable, put in a fair amount of hours during build season, and most importantly, will listen to the drive coach.

Hope this helps, good luck this season!

[Katie_UPS]

Originally Posted by avanboekel

1) We always have 2 teams of 2 for driving the robot. One team is the 'A' team, and the other is the backup.

Everyone has some really good advice, but I want to stress that having back-up drivers is very important. The primary drivers need time with the robot (as much as you can spare), but make sure the back-up drivers also get some time. The more complex the controls, the more you want to make sure your back-up driver has practice time too.

Other than that, I found listening, dedication, and common sense are good qualities to have in your drivers.

[JohnGilb]

Selection

Drive team selection is something that is a high priority for our team. There are a few things we do that I believe contribute to a high-quality drive team (& human player, but I'll mostly focus on robot operations):

1) Driver candidates may not touch the robot controls until they take a written test that covers every rule mentioned in that year's "The Game" document, and must score over 90%. They can take the test as many times as they want, and the test doesn't change - the only thing that matters is that they learn the rules of the game until they are second nature.
--Having a test of any kind helps you identify the candidates who are willing to put in effort for this opportunity
--No robot time until they pass the test makes for a great motivator for learning the rules
--A drive team that knows the rules by heart can perform some fairly impressive feats and make quick judgement calls on the field

2) Drive candidates then choose a specialization - Driver or Operator, and they only practice in those roles. They also list who they would prefer to Drive/Operate alongside with.
--You already get so little practice time during the season, you want to make sure that candidates are spending as much time focusing on their area of expertise as possible. You want to have the best possible driver and the best possible operator, not the best possible driver and the second best driver who reluctantly is now the operator
--Many of the candidates are probably friends, share classes, etc... and there can be excellent performance improvements when they bring that synergy to the field already instead of having to cultivate it in a few weeks.

3) Drive candidates are then put through a series of practical tests using a practice chassis or old robot (a driver might go through a series of slaloms, or other difficult maneuvers, for example)
--Some candidates will just have more aptitude for a particular robot or design, and you want to see that before you make your decision

4) The drive team is then chosen, using all the data from steps 1-3. The other candidates become the backup drive team (in case of illness, etc).


Enhancement

Now that you've got your primary drive team, you should focus all your efforts on training them - time becomes a precious commodity.

Given that your drive team will command the robot for about 2 minutes every match, with a rough average of 17 matches per regional with two regionals and the world championship (let's assume you have a winning team that gets to play a lot of elimination matches), that's about 102 minutes of operation. Less than two hours. There's no way to master something in less than two hours (spread out over several weeks!)

Thus, any direct or indirect practice you can do will vastly increase the skill of your drive team.

1) Before shipping the robot, prioritize letting the drive team get their hands on the robot whenever possible. An incomplete robot with expert drivers will still be a force to be reckoned with, but an amazing machine with novices at the controls will generally be a disappointment.
--Even if your robot doesn't have the right mechanisms to push for a win by itself, showing that you know how to use it will often lead to being picked by other teams during alliance selection.

2) Have the drive team stick together, get used to each other as much as possible, and encourage a friendly rapport. Try to make sure they're doing the same activities, eating together, etc... this will help them develop efficient non-verbal communication.
--When your drive team really knows each other (whether from activities outside FIRST or from a relationship that develops on the team), you'll start to believe the robot is being operated by one incredibly effective person.

3) Try to maximize "time on the sticks" whenever possible. If this year's robot isn't available, have them drive the old one. There are meta-skills at play (changing your mental reference frame when operating tank drive, for example) that will remain constant across years.

4) If no robots are available, have them play co-op videogames. The best possible game I've ever seen for this is Mario Kart: Double Dash played in "coop" mode. One player is responsible for driving the kart, and the other has a host of smaller but key abilities. Sound familiar?
--Any other coop game will help. The goal is to promote teambuilding activities, increase the synergy of the drive team, and just spend more time getting used to the idea of operating a remote device while standing still.

5) If nothing is available, visualize. Have your drive team just spend time imagining matches, how they would respond to changing circumstances, how they'd move the robot around.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

As Katie has pointed out, a backup drive team is essential. Over the years, we have had our drive team compromised by mono, bad grades, and a caffeine overdose (Mountain Dew and coffee). We select drivers through a series of test drives on an obstacle course using a previous year's robot. The test drive is open to all who want to try out. Some of our best drive teams have come from students who were encouraged to step up but never saw themselves as drivers. It is essential to get started early in the season on this part. By the time your team has a driving base even if it is prototype, the drive teams should be getting practice driving. Once you have a drive team practicing, they also have to be in on strategy discussions and hopefully should be part of the robot build. A good driver can maneuver the robot, a great driver can tell you what's wrong when something breaks on the field or the robot is not driving as it should. In those cases, a great driver may be able to figure out what to do with a broken robot instead of simply giving up. We have had drivers complete a successful match even when one side of the robot drive goes completely dead.

Practice, practice, practice!

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Tubatroopa

Team 45 typically has a driver (robot placement on field) and an operator (what the robot is doing). Every year the mentors look over the game manual and make several 45 question tests.

Yikes. That means we'll have to write several 1,529-question tests.
Better get started now. No time to wait for the game manual to come out.

(glad we're not a rookie team. Those 4K+ tests would be horrible!)

Seriously, the test-the-drive-team idea is a good one. Usually some enterprising teams are gracious enough to put their drive team quizzes online. We often look at those as an entire team, just to make sure everybody is up to speed on the rules. Even for the non-drive team members. We wouldn't want to pursue a design or function which may lead us to inadvertently break a rule; to the contrary, we try to design in such a way that some rules would be impossible (or at least highly unlikey) to be broken..

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

As Katie has pointed out, a backup drive team is essential. Over the years, we have had our drive team compromised by mono, bad grades, and a caffeine overdose (Mountain Dew and coffee). We select drivers through a series of test drives on an obstacle course using a previous year's robot. The test drive is open to all who want to try out. Some of our best drive teams have come from students who were encouraged to step up but never saw themselves as drivers. It is essential to get started early in the season on this part. By the time your team has a driving base even if it is prototype, the drive teams should be getting practice driving. Once you have a drive team practicing, they also have to be in on strategy discussions and hopefully should be part of the robot build. A good driver can maneuver the robot, a great driver can tell you what's wrong when something breaks on the field or the robot is not driving as it should. In those cases, a great driver may be able to figure out what to do with a broken robot instead of simply giving up. We have had drivers complete a successful match even when one side of the robot drive goes completely dead.

Practice, practice, practice!

Al makes a great point here on the distinction between a good and great driver... Just this past year, our very final match in the finals at North Star our lifting mechanism broke during autonomous. Even though we had never played defense before, our driver didn't hesitate to race over to the other side - as a result, the opposing "super alliance" didn't score a single logo that match, and we managed to win. If she had just given up, there's no way we would have won that match.

[davidthefat]

Not sure if this is sound advice, but our team usually had 1 programmer, 1 electrical or hardware person and the team captain on the drive team. The programmer was there to see first hand how the robot handles and performs on the field. It also allows them to see the autonomous code at work. Sure, you can have all the practice matches you want, but that is just how my mentor did it. The team captain usually collaborated with the other teams to come up with the strategy. I got put on the drive team because I was essentially had the most practice because I programmed it.

[Phyrxes]

To build on the previous post:
Out preferred method of facilitating troubleshooting is to make sure that between the driver, operator, and human player at least one of them has been trained on each of the major sub-systems.

[pandamonium]

Enhancement as it was called earlier in my opinion should take place NOW not just after drivers are selected. There actually is a large amount that drivers or potential drive teams can do in the off-season. So much that our team has a separate sub-team devoted to strategy and drive.

Team building activities: working together and developing good techniques to handle stressful situations.

Off-Season events: You can drive in your shop for hours and hours but that is like practicing in a vacuum. Until you have other robots on the field and all sorts of complex interactions you will not be fully trained. Also some people excel under these conditions and others do not. I have seen some drivers who practice really well but perform different when it counts and the opposite.

Learn moves: There are certain moves that we have picked up on over the years. For example there is a right and a wrong way to push a robot. There are ways to block other robots or drive in a specific way that actually makes your robot perform better.

Communication: I would recommend spending at least 2 or 3 meetings working on this. We have developed several fun games and exercises that really help the students improve in this area.

Robot Comprehension: Each robot has a certain feel to it. They drive and operate differently even if they have the same drive types. A good driver can tell if the robot is ten pounds heavier or if there is a problem with one of the mechanisms or programing. At this point no one has any idea what mechanisms or drive systems will be in this years game so try to expose them to as many types as possible. The added bonus to this skill is the drive team can give an accurate diagnosis of the robot condition to pit crew after every match.

Strategy: Play board games or challenge the perspective drivers in some way to work on finding a creative solution to problems. We have simulated a pre-match strategy meeting to look at what topics should be covered and how best to utilize pre match communication between the teams. This also helps us pick out our student coach.

This process is definitely not only focused around the robot. Actually I think it is 50/50 most of those traits of an ideal driver that have been mentioned can be taught and learned. At the end of this training process every year we have students tell us that some silly game we played or some topic we discussed months ago helped them a lot during competitions. Also this is far from a complete list there really are just so many things that can be done in advance to train drivers.