Driver Skill

[Andy A.]

Originally Posted by bEdhEd

Usually our drive team consists of most of the pit crew. Irony.

It's not so surprising that this is the case though, is it? Drivers are often the students who put the most time and effort into the team and are most invested in it's success. They know what the robot is doing, what it should be doing and want/need to know what it's going to do in the next match. It stands to reason that they'll often be the most familiar and capable of servicing the robot.

It may or may not necessarily be ideal but, for a lot of teams, it's a reality and one you roll with. I don't think helping in the pits has nearly as big a negative impact on drivers as it's sometimes made out to. Driving isn't that stressful, unless you make it so.

[DonRotolo]

Drivers should be able to do all the routine moves easily, with little thought: Stops, turns, go from "here to there" and stop precisely, line up with something (like the feeder stations last year), drive around a defender, and so on. The way to do that is practice, practice, practice.

[Harman341]

One thing that's helpful is watching match footage and coming up with a good game plan. In a lot of matches you will see drivers waste time on the field because they can't decide whether to defend, score teleop points, or in past years at least, prep for endgame.

[Dukenator76]

A good driver must be able to keep calm and never fall to pressure when on the field they must also be willing to admit they messed up and take responsibilities and learn from their mistakes. For practice our guys get the practice matches at the competitions and that is it.