Drive team stress?

[EggotheKilljoy]

I'm going to be my teams driver this year, and after driving in last year's exhibition match in KC, the stress kept building up. For those of you who are on or have been on your team's drive team, how do you deal with the stress that ensues?

[Jay O'Donnell]

One thing that you need to remember is that you are your team's driver for a reason. Whether it is because you are the best driver, or you put in the most work, or however your team picks their drivers, you need to remember that your team is behind you no matter what happens. If the stress gets to you, take a minute to leave the pits, sit in the stands and just take a deep breath. Remember that FIRST is supposed to be fun and you shouldn't be stressed out over it.

[who716]

Originally Posted by EggotheKilljoy

I'm going to be my teams driver this year, and after driving in last year's exhibition match in KC, the stress kept building up. For those of you who are on or have been on your team's drive team, how do you deal with the stress that ensues?

Personally i thrive in stressful situations and have been in them numerous points during my life. But one thing that always helps is to eat, eat slightly not enough to get you sick or anything but eating does help

[Electronica1]

After enough matches you get used to the stress. You just have to remember to say calm and do what you practiced. Also avoid drinking energy drinks/soda before the match, because that tends to make it worse.

[M. Lillis]

It's already been mentioned, but I'll reiterate it. The driver was picked for a reason. If they did not trust your judgement, you would not be driver. Don't dwell on it. I've been driver for two years now, and even though we haven't won all our matches, I don't stress out over specific decisions or situations that I will be in/have been in.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by M. Lillis

It's already been mentioned, but I'll reiterate it. The driver was picked for a reason. If they did not trust your judgement, you would not be driver. Don't dwell on it. I've been driver for two years now, and even though we haven't won all our matches, I don't stress out over specific decisions or situations that I will be in/have been in.

That's another great point. You're simply not going to win every single one of your matches. Even some of the greatest seasons in FRC history were not undefeated seasons. Don't dwell on a loss, learn from it.

[MattRain]

As it was said, your team picked you for a reason. Your the one down on the field that has to make the split-second desicisions. Your the driver, and you know what your doing, and what your robots real strenghts are. I was a driver for 2-3 years on an FRC team and 2 years on an FTC Team. For me, After every match, I usually had to sit down, breath, and calm down. Just find a spot and go there everytime, away from the rest of the team.

I know with my team, sometimes one or two people wouldnt aggree with what I did during the match, and it may happen to you, but you have to remember that your the driver, you have the best view of whats happening on the ground floor.

Most importantly, have fun when your down there! Not alot of team memebers get to go onto the real playing field. It's FIRST, your suppose to have fun!

I aggree with the energy drink comment too... it never sat well my first year of FRC driving.

[PayneTrain]

In anything in life, remember that no one honestly wants to see you fail, and for the .1% that might, they're not worth your time anyways. FIRST is an environment that will bring out anxiety that everyone has in them. When you give a speech, your audience wants to see you succeed. When you take a test for a class, the teacher wants to see you ace it. When a team selects a driver, the team think's they've already found a winner-you. The first thought yo ushould have in your head isn't "the team is counting on me," but "the team believes in me." It's a subtle difference in writing but the second one instills you with confidence instead of enabling fear.

[fox46]

After doing this for this for so many years, being in the driver station as a coach doesn't even phase me- it's just another match. At the same time I was the driver for my own team in high school and I know how stressful it can be. Just remember to focus on the machine and the task at hand. Try not to think about "what happens if I win/fail" or the loud music and distractions those are for the rest of your team to worry about.

Also remember that you have other people with you in the driver's station- your coach and co-drivers along with your alliance partners' coaches and codrivers. These people need to be helping you along by watching the field and giving direction when needed. As a driver you can't be expected to keep track of everything going on during a match- you need to be focussed on your machine so these people need to be your eyes and ears for the gameplay around you. For example: If you are fumbling around trying to make a last assist of the match, your co-drivers/coach needs to be watching the clock and if you're running out of time, communicate this to you so you can ramjam the ball into the low goal or fire it into high to end the cycle before the match ends.

Also be sure you get together with your alliance partners before a match and decide on a strategy. Having a clear definition of what is expected of your robot from your alliance partners will allow you to focus on one role rather than running around aimlessly during a match. Things are always easier when you have clear direction.

Stay away from caffeine and sugar, drink lots of water, eat well and get lots of sleep are the best ways to keep stress down.

[thefro526]

There is a certain amount of stress that is a constant when on a team's driveteam, or really, any crucial team role while at a competition. One of the best ways to lessen the burden of any of those roles is to eliminate any unnecessary stress that you can, and then focus on what you're there to do.

Here are a few tips based on what I've learned over the years, some of which may or may not apply to your situation:

- A robot can be fixed, but a match cannot be replayed. There is nothing worse than playing a match and losing because you limited yourself out of fear of damaging your robot. One good match like this can eat away at you for the rest of the competition.

- You will make the best decision that you can make with the information you're given, in the time allotted. Looking back on my own experience, when I was younger, I had a tendency to let my actions eat away at me, thinking about what I could have done differently, or better. Now I've come to realize that I made the best decision that I could, and that if that decision was the wrong one, it was because I needed more information, to think for an extra half a second, etc, etc. If you make a bad decision, learn from it, but don't beat yourself up.

- Trust those around you, even if you think they may not be as good as you. As a drive team member, you should actively avoid micromanaging every robot related task, unless you really need to. No reason to change the battery, fix something, etc, etc, if someone else can do the job. Sure, they may not do it as fast, but if it gets done right, and on time, who cares? Giving up some of those other jobs will add up over time, and you'll start to see that your stress is going down.

- Keep an open mind, take advice, criticism, whatever, and actually think about it. If you're actively open to people's advice (especially those on your team) it can help to improve your performance, while also lessening the odds of someone coming down on you hard after a bad match. If you make your entire team feel engaged in what goes on while you're on the field, they'll have a tendency to support, more often than blame. (If your team is that kind of team, again, these are general.)

- Don't be afraid to take a break, ask for support, vent, etc. I've seen a lot of people (myself included) take their job too seriously, and not just sit down and watch a match or something. When I was a driver (a long time ago) it took me the better part of forever to learn how to walk away for 5 minutes, look at the sky, think about nothing, and come back - but once I learned how to do that, my job became so much easier.

- Leave it all on the field. Go out to each of your matches as if it is the last one you'll ever play. Do not hold back, do not over think, do not hesitate, just drive. If you put everything into each of your performances, you may find that it eases the pressure that you'll place on yourself to perform. If you know that you gave your all, and you lost, then so be it - but if you held back, and lost, then you might beat yourself up over it.

- Go with the flow. Don't fight battles that aren't worth fighting - you'll have enough battles to fight on the field. If someone wants to start their robot 3" to the left of yours, and it doesn't hurt you in any way, but it's a deviation from the plan, just roll with it. I've seen way too many people get worked up over little things that don't actually matter.

Oh, and don't forget to have fun. Yes, being a driver is a serious job. Yes, you're responsible for your teams fate as far as winning and losing is concerned. Does that mean you can't have fun? No. Be goofy, laugh, smile, make friends, do weird stuff, hug your robot, dance when you're announced for a match, whatever. The more fun you have, the less stressed you'll be - I promise.

[MaxMax161]

This is going to sound tacky but the most important thing is to have fun. It's really hard to be stressed in a bad way while you're smiling and having a great time.

Keep in mind that you're not alone out there, in addition to the other drive team members standing next to you all the people involved in selecting you as driver are backing you. They selected you because you are the best, therefore you are the best.

When you're on the field there's only one question that matters, Is XYZ going to change how I play the game? If it's an elims match or a qual match, going to play to win either way, doesn't matter. Other alliance is stacked or didn't show up, going to play to win either way, doesn't matter.

tl;dr: Go out there, do what you do, have fun, come home.

[Chris_Ely]

One thing that I have always found important is to drink water, eat during lunch break, and sit down occasionally. It is easy to get caught up in the events and get dehydrated. Lunch break offers a time to repair to robot and talk strategy. But don't forget to actually get lunch. You will also be standing up and walking around a lot. If you get the chance, take a seat--your feet will thank you at the end on the event.
And no matter how well you place, have FUN!

[Nick.kremer]

Originally Posted by who716

Personally i thrive in stressful situations and have been in them numerous points during my life. But one thing that always helps is to eat, eat slightly not enough to get you sick or anything but eating does help

^ THIS!

Being a driver at competition is always stressful as you are always in demand, there is very little down time, and if there is....that usually means a broken robot which is only more stressful. Remember to take time to eat!

Other than that, try to focus on the task at hand! But have fun, driving is great way to meet people at competition.

[Koko Ed]

FIRST is seriously intense and some of the drive teams do crack under pressure (the worst I saw was a student coach drop a ton of f-bombs on his human player for not performing up to his expectations). Some kids eat it up like ice cream and some look like a deer in the headlights. Not really sure if tests and interviews can really judge if kids can face the increasing pressure of the moment as the event draws on.

[Lil' Lavery]

Drink plenty of water
Remember to eat/Keep your blood sugar up
Find a moment to get outside
Watch some other teams' matches
Joke with your teammates
Queue for matches during the first call, if possible, to avoid having to rush to the match
Let the pit crew handle their jobs