How is your team picking its drive team?

[Koko Ed]

Every year our coach issues a written rules test, followed by a physical driving test (there is also a specific test for operators and another one for human players) and finally an interview with the coach and the team leadership.
We selected our drives team yesterday. The driver and operator are the same as last year. Our backup driver from last year is now the coach and our backup human player is now our human player. All the backups are new team members.

[TheJoe]

Originally Posted by AJCaliciuri

• Driver Skill
• Attendance during Build Season
• Knowledge of the Game
• Ability to take Direction
• Ability to take Criticism
• GP
• (In some Cases) Seniority
• Behaviour/Attitude

That list is essentially what we also base our drive team on

[E Dawg]

159 uses an obstacle course to test driver proficiency. We also require that drive team members have been on the team for at least one year. This helps us narrow it down to core team members. It is also a general rule of thumb that the drive team has one programmer, one electrician, and two shop monkeys.

[Canon reeves]

we are a second year team and at the moment have only two people working on the robot and showing up for meetings, so we are hoping we can get more to help on the drive team, not sure. We do initial driver skill over time and how well they think on the fly and strategy. last year we didn't plan for anything and I was the driver and was the only one doing anything because we didn't realize they need to work together. This year we understand better and will do much better hopefully.

[thursam]

Usually one of our drivers is a programmer (but it could be anybody,) because their task is to mesh our drive code with the new, season code (driving, mechanisms, etc.) They tend to have a better, general knowledge of the robot as a whole, and have consistent training with driving the robot and working the mechanisms together. (But again, it could be anybody.)

The other driver could be anybody, but in the past it tends to be the second programmer, for the same reason as listed above. This year it is a little different, because our program duo graduated, so they cannot be on the drive team. We're probably going to hold tryouts to choose the second driver.

Justin Montois is correct, as well. Teamwork is the number one component you need on a drive team - everything else, in truth, comes second.

[TheCrayButton]

This might be helpful to your team. http://media.wix.com/ugd/62e485_c92b...e4f2dc7e09.pdf

[Pault]

Originally Posted by TheCrayButton

This might be helpful to your team. http://media.wix.com/ugd/62e485_c92b...e4f2dc7e09.pdf

Q: Can drive team members be associated with Chairmans and other projects?
A: No

I really, really hope this is a typo.

[jwallace15]

We haven't started our drive team tryouts yet this year (there has been an emphasis on driver practice this year with our actual robot, so we've been frantically scurrying to design and finish our robot. We had to miss some meeting days for bad weather so we're already behind), but I can talk about how my driver tryout experience went for last year.

First off, our driver tryouts are private. No students except the one trying out are allowed in the room (our woodshop). Our team leader and lead programming mentor were the proctors of my tryout. I started out by getting 2 minutes of free practice to get accustomed to the controls. Then I was told to drive our robot (a rolling chassis with similar speed characteristics that the actual robot would have) back to the driver station and to disable it. 2 chairs were placed in the middle of the room, and I had to drive a figure eight between them (forwards and backwards). I had 2 attempts at each direction, and the fastest time was the one scored.

Next, our 2012 robot was brought in, and I was handed our manipulator controller. Our team leader took control of the chassis driving, and I had to suck up balls and tell my team leader where to line up to take shots into our basketball hoop (without the aid of a camera. After all, what if it gets broken in a match?).

I then went back to the chassis joysticks and guided the robot to pick up and shoot some more basketballs.

On a different date, a 20 question rules test was administered. This tested our knowledge of the match rules, as well as some frame perimeter and height rules (like the height restriction in different areas of the field).

There was also a separate test for human players; frisbee throwing accuracy.

After all drivers showed their skills at the controls and took the rules test, the backup and main drivers were chosen by our team leader and a couple other team advisors. The results from the tests are considered, as well as character and grades (we are required to submit grade checks for all of our classes; the benchmark is a 75% or above in all classes. If a student receives a grade below that, they are required to attend a disciplinary hearing and are placed on academic probation. The severity of the punishment depends on the grade).

(on a quick side note, we don't have student drive coaches. It has typically been our team leader, but this year we are introducing a new drive coach; a mentor who served as our driver in 2011. He's also a mentor to our scouting and strategy team)

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Pault

I really, really hope this is a typo.

I think the question/answer are worded badly, but really the reason here is that Chairman's presentation team members should not be on the drive team as well, since the Chairman's presentation might take place in one of your team's matches.

[who716]

We are fortunate because we have a pre ship scrimmage before the end of build season we attend so anyone that want to be on drive team can try in the qualification matches and when it comes to elimination the best of the drivers gets to play. And becomes the official drive team. This is great because unlike some of the above ways you get the full experiacnce of game play to compare everyone with. Unfortunelty only works if you have a scrimmage around

[BrendanRadabaug]

Bacon eating contest.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by BrendanRadabaug

Bacon eating contest.

Normal bacon or exploding bacon?