Picking A Drive Team

[MARS_James]

Originally Posted by EricPalmatier

Any thoughts!?

I started reading, and I know everything except what is "Ranking Score"?

[Kidney]

Our drivers are usually the students who know the robot the best, typically those who spent the most time building it and learning how it works. We usually have a scout or a programmer to go up with them as coach.

[Koko Ed]

First we have them take a written test then do an on field drivers test with either our practice bot or the previous year's bot and finally they have an interview with the coach and the team's leadership.

[dtengineering]

Once our team started taking part in VEX competitions it became a lot easier to pick our FRC driver(s).

And try to make sure you have a backup driver who gets some practice time in. Long story, but for our team's very first "elimination match" we had to go with our backup driver because our primary driver was out looking for cheap shoes at the Nike outlet store. (In retrospect, it was more complex than described here and kind of understandable... but I didn't really feel that way at the time!)

Also make sure the drive team includes at least one person who knows the mechanical/pneumatic/electrical system and one who knows the code/sensors/communication system.

If something goes wrong during the match... you lose comms, or bust a chain... you'll need a detailed report from someone who knows the system and knows what to look for in order to expedite troubleshooting.

And they ALL have to know the rules... inside and out... before you let them anywhere near the competition floor.

Usually I would keep one or two positions (often the coach or human player) as a position where I could recognize graduating team members, or team members who had made extraordinary contributions by giving them some time on the playing field and a chance to receive the applause they were rightfully owed. It could be argued that we might have fielded a slightly better drive team for that match if I had put someone else "in", but I think there was a long term payoff in having team members know that they could earn their way onto the playing field (if only for a match or two) through hard work and dedication.

Jason

[EricPalmatier]

Originally Posted by MARS_James

I started reading, and I know everything except what is "Ranking Score"?

So, you may have noticed that there are several questions in the test that are misleading...This is done primarily to test the confidence of the test taker. I basically want to know that they know the answer, and that they are confident that they know the answer. If I spoon feed answers and throw softball questions, I'm never going to find out what I want to know.

That being said, the answer I was looking for, in relationship to the "ranking score" is the following:

There is no "ranking score" in the sense that ranking is not scored the same way as a Match score or a qualification score. A teams ranking is determined by the calculated sum of a teams qualification score. In the event of a Tie, the sum of a teams auto score will be used as a tie breaker. Should there still be a tie, the following scores (in order) will be used to break the tie: climb points -> sum of the conjunction of teleop points and foul points -> then random sorting by FMS.

Hope that helps!

[apalrd]

This question comes up every year on CD.

John V-Neun wrote a great long blog post about the question a few years ago.

I think John sums it up pretty well. We can train students to drive the robot. We look for the things we can't train.

We also usually use similar criteria to determine the human player; they are usually a team member who we see with driver potential in the future. Frequently they become a driver a year or two later.

We will never issue a scored 'driver test' of any kind.

[EricPalmatier]

Originally Posted by apalrd

We will never issue a scored 'driver test' of any kind.

Can you elaborate? A scored test, in conjunction with an interview and practical driving test has always served well to accurately assess a driver's knowledge and ability. There are obviously other things we look at, but it certainly helps to know the candidates seriousness and overall knowledge of the game.

Driving is a privilege. It should be a position of prestige on the team. That being said, that candidate should exhibit:

-Role model material ( Someone the team members should look up to)
-strong speaking skills
-aptitude for strategy ( understanding it and developing it)
-problem solving
-thorough understanding of the game
-scoring
-rules
-be able to drive the robot

I wouldn't take the best driver in the world, if they didn't know the rules. I run into loads of drive teams at events in strategy sessions before a match that clearly haven't got a clue. ( you all know them, the ones at the driver meetings asking the questions that have been beat to death here on CD) I know not all teams go through such a rigorous vetting process for their drive team candidates, but the students should earn the position.

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by EricPalmatier

Can you elaborate? A scored test, in conjunction with an interview and practical driving test has always served well to accurately assess a driver's knowledge and ability. There are obviously other things we look at, but it certainly helps to know the candidates seriousness and overall knowledge of the game.

We don't really care how good a driver candidate is at driving their first or second time behind the sticks. All of them won't be very good at that time. The majority of them will be lucky to hit a wall less than 3 times. If we tried a course with cones or something, the cones would likely be destroyed on the first run. I've spent days pre-season monitoring underclassmen driving in the basement. It's a scary thing to be standing on the field with them behind the sticks.

We also don't think a written rules test is important, since we both read ALL of the arena/game/robot rules several times with the team over the course of the strategy sessions, AND we can train the driver with drills or such.

Basically, anything that we can measure and score, we can also train, so we don't care about it in our driver decisions.

The real driver test is how the driver candidate handles themselves during offseason competitions, VEX, and OCCRA. We've learned far more valuable knowledge about their driving skills, dealing with pressure, and dealing with people from these events in the fall than we could ever learn from a written rules test or obstacle course test. I could probably tell you more about a few of our driver candidates driving styles and +-'s than they could.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by apalrd

This question comes up every year on CD.

John V-Neun wrote a great long blog post about the question a few years ago.

I think John sums it up pretty well. We can train students to drive the robot. We look for the things we can't train.

We also usually use similar criteria to determine the human player; they are usually a team member who we see with driver potential in the future. Frequently they become a driver a year or two later.

We will never issue a scored 'driver test' of any kind.

On 422, it has always been something along the lines of the drive team always being "go-to" guys who rose above the rest throughout the season. The people that clock in every day probably know every nuance about the robot that you can't train or test. No obstacle course will teach it. My drivers had a sixth sense about the robot last year, they could feel how to lift it, turn it, spot the best places shoot by themselves... it was incredible.

There was no test. It was just them on the field, knowing how it worked.