Help with driver selection

[sanddrag]

I look very closely at how their fingers interact with the joysticks. Some people wrap their hands all the way around them like it's a fighter pilot game and this does not offer smooth precise control of a robot.

[skrussel]

It's not so much about the joysticks....it's about how the 2 communicate and react/respond to each other too. They need to not let their egos get in the way, and they need to listen to each other. No blaming when things go wrong. Calm. Grace under pressure.

You can always practice and get better at controlling the robot, even in a short time, but WHO YOU ARE right now and how you act under stress, and how you work together is already a factor.

[Ryan Dognaux]

This isn't necessarily how my team does it, this is just a personal view.
I believe there should be a 'try-out' kinda deal where the people who have the best ability to drive the robot should do it. I might sound kinda biased since I do animation and basically work on the robot zero of the time, but still that doesn't make a person a bad driver. The ones w/ the best skills should be the ones driving, but also the people have to have a good knowledge of the game and be able to see everything that's going on on the playing field. Oh yeah, hand-eye coordination is a biggie.

[Ashley Weed]

Common sense.... reaction time.... following directions... and knowleledge are big, however, I believe the 'getting-along' aspect is the biggest of any when choosing a team.

A try-out is an excellent idea..... I went through a try-out prior to becoming a driver. How would you do it without a previous robot? Maybe a team nearby would be willing to allow you to borrow one of their past robots for a day to test skills..... I know that we would be willing to help a team nearby us.

The drivers must know the game in full detail... be able to give you an accurate score in a reasonable time... and know all of the rules of the field. The driver must also be responsible for their robot, and be completely knoweledgeable of their machine.

The individual must be dedicated. The drivers are basically responsible for the outcome of a match. As a driver, they should have the knoweledge of all possible apponents and allies. They should have an excellent reaction time for working with and against teams.

Be sure that your drivers can work together. Without a well-functioning driver team, your coach will not be able to work well with them. On my team, the driver-team actually chooses their coach, so they should be able to work together. The human player should also be viewed as to how the person would work with the rest of the floor team.

A happy drive team produces a successful FIRST team.

[Redhead Jokes]

Originally posted by weedie
Maybe a team nearby would be willing to allow you to borrow one of their past robots for a day to test skills..... I know that we would be willing to help a team nearby us.

Our full practice field and 2001 robot are available to So Cal teams.

[Duke 13370]

On our team, the smart ones are the ones that don't want to drive. (It's just to crazy this year)

[rust710]

Well not all the smart ones. I still want to drive and at present I am the only one who wants to that has tried.

[sanddrag]

Certain parts of our robot will be very difficult to control to say it without giving a way much. To operate there are probably two qualified people and to drive probably three qualified people. We try to be as fair as posible but we broke the thing in driver tryouts last year on ship day. Try to find a driver challenge that will promote skillful pecise driving rather than quick, aggressive driving.

[Kit Gerhart]

I was heavily involved in the driver testing for most of my years with TechnoKats and we did several things, among them:

1) Have the candidates drive the robot for time around a course of cones. If you have a fairly fast robot, or one with gear change which is fast in high gear, this seems to be a valuable test.

2) Have the prospective drivers do things that you would do in real matches, again for time and precision. In 2001, we tested the drivers' ability to get the two goals and balance on the ramp. In '98, we tested both driver and operator for ability to do their respective jobs as would be done in matches. That year, I drove while testing operators, and Jeff Burch operated while testing drivers. I am very convinced that we ended up with the best driver and operator that year.

3) Give written tests on the rules of the game. This can be very important.

4) While testing drivers at you home base, encourage heckling and noise making by spectators to the testing. It is noisy, and the pressure is high during matches, so it makes sense to have distractions while testing (IMHO)

5) You always have to watch for the little things when evaluating drivers. A stop watch will tell you a lot, but if you have been around it, you can detect real skill when you see it, and sometimes the stop watch doesn't tell the whole story.

The use of R/C cars has been mentioned in several posts to this thread, and it should be valuable for learning to stay oriented when going in various directions and coming toward you. The steering wheel/finger throttle of an R/C car is certainly different from the way most of our robots are driven, but for learning orientation, driving the cars should be of benefit for teams which don't yet have a robot to drive.

All of what I have said is some of my opinion on driver and operator selection if you goal is to have the best drive team for winning matches. There are certainly other philosophies, including letting students drive who have "earned" the position, and there is merit to that. That can be a "tie breaker" with the TK team if there is no obvious "best" driver candidate.

While there are several students on every team who would like to be driver, operator, and human player, not everyone can have these positions and one of the most important jobs of all is to do the selection fairly so you avoid peoples' feeling being hurt.

[evulish]

Originally posted by weedie
Common sense.... reaction time.... following directions... and knowleledge are big

Yeah...so...uhh...how'd you get to be driver? *runs away quickly* Who fell asleep at the controls? Wha? You did?

[srjjs]

For this year, unless you have a huge playbook, strategy is going to be a lot more important than actual driving skill. Someone who knows the game backwards and forwards with only mediocre driving skill is going to be a lot better choice than someone who can drive superbly. In the 1-2 seconds it takes to communicate info from coach to driver, a lot can happen. The semi-instantaneous travel of instruction overcompensates for the slight lag in reflexes, etc.

[Kit Gerhart]

Something I didn't mention in my earlier post is that, at TechnoKats, we'd narrow down our list of potential drivers and operators to two or three students per position before our first regional, and then switch people around in the qualifying matches at the regional. The actual competition is the best place to determine who is the best driver, and is by far the best practice your team will get.

The last few years, we had generally determined who our "first string" driver, operator, and human player would be by the end of the qualifying rounds of the first of our two regionals and made few, if any changes after that time.

[Ashley Weed]

Originally posted by evulish
Yeah...so...uhh...how'd you get to be driver? *runs away quickly* Who fell asleep at the controls? Wha? You did?

haha..... leave me alone..... I think that is a job well done.... 80 competitive matches and only one mistake???? anyone wanna challenge that???

[Dima]

The way i view drivers for the robot are like ummm... astronauts

the control center is the one that tells you the mission objective and advice on how to approach it. (This would be the coach and the human player (who is your second coach)) But ultimatly the astronauts are in controll of the space vessel.

Yes your drivers need to have the knowledge of the game they need to know the robot in and out. It is very important for them to be able to orient themselves in 3D space.

how ever there are other qualities such as being able to listen to others, being nice to others (driver coach team members).

anyways too much to say too little time