Tips for Driver Practice

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Bill_B

Put someone in charge of timing the practice runs for each section's length. The worst thing you can do for your batteries is to let your enthusiasm for practicing run the batteries into the ground. Mileages vary but five minutes of hard practice is a good rule of thumb for those without explicit measurement tools. Wait. You say you only have eight batteries? Yes, that does mean only 40 minutes of driving time unless you're charging during practice. How many minutes driving do you get at qualifications? Would you start match 2 with the same battery as match 1? Why would it differ at practice?

In short, change batteries frequently. Put the one just used onto a charger very soon after it comes out of service. Do not let the last batteries of the day wait until your next meeting to get their electrons jolted back into shape. Think of driving practice as competition practice. Those pit crews at NASCAR never just go through the motions.

From another thread, for consideration in this one...

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

[snip]To make sure you get max charge, let the battery cool down after you take it off the robot for 30 minutes or more. [snip]

I do very much agree with timing practice sessions. It helps reinforce how much time is actually in a match as well as protecting batteries. The "practice" option in the operator interface is great for this.

[IronicDeadBird]

I already posted about this elsewhere but I will say it again since I don't feel like copy and pasting.

Start off by identifying your drive system and learning the advantages and disadvantages of that.
For example this year the team I am working with is using tank drive and while it is great for turning on a dime I also wanted drivers to be aware that tank drive also can handle gentle curves elegantly. For the most basic drivers I would have them do figure 8's inside a circle of cones and I would slowly make the circle smaller, while the more advanced drivers would get courses where it was incorporated into other obstacles like things that block vision to simulate what to do when you can't see your robot completely.

I am currently writing up a bunch of drive activities on a google drive if you are interested please contact me!

[Conor Ryan]

Its super simple, but I recommend setting up the drive station in practice mode and running a full match. Do 2:30 of your game. Take a look at the set up tab, but it preconfigs a 10 sec auton and then 140 of Teleop.

Nobody else is on the field, do what you can to maximize points.

[BrendanB]

A few tips:

*Note this is upon determining who is the final drivers which is done by a different metric*

We typically will give our drivers some time to adjust to the controls and get used to what they are doing. For me as the drive coach I typically will spend my time standing in the room watching not saying a word unless they are about to break something. Giving drivers time to learn on their own and see how they communicate without a drive coach is essential. It also gives the drivers an easier/less stressful environment to get used to the robot without a drive coach over their shoulder.

Once I see our drivers are at a comfortable level we start running practice matches (auto + teleop). Again I still do not "coach" but instead watch. After each match we discuss what they did good, what they did well, and what they should improve upon/watch for in the next match. We usually run 2-3 matches then have a 10 minute cool down.

We keep running these practice matches as much as we can each time trying something new. Last year I would call out what side of the pyramid they needed to line up on as they were doing each cycle or change the feeder station. I also like using trashcans/old robots as best I can. We never get a chance to get a defense robot running so instead I would change up the field between each cycle so our driver got a good taste for picking a new route and always had a new obstacle to get around.

In addition to on field practice I like to sit down with the drivers to discuss the rules, strategy, game play, contingency plans, communication, etc as well as getting their opinions/thoughts on how we should approach a match/tournament. I also encourage our operator to take home a gamepad and imagine the robot in a match and what buttons they have to practice for "virtual simulations". I find for our operators this is a good way to really nail down the controls as they need to get to a level where they don't need to think about what to press they just do it.

Oh, and the most important is to make sure they not only read but UNDERSTAND the rules.