Drive Team Fatigue

[Ozuru]

I was wondering what you guys did to prevent your drive team from becoming fatigued after a full 12 hour day of running back and forth across a high school. Any tricks or tips your team utilizes? For example, I've heard teams say good things (and some bad things) about Doctor Scholls.

[GeeTwo]

High scooolers fatigued? I rarely let myself take that excuse on the high side of 50, though I do allow myself pollen as an excuse more often than I did in my twenties and thirties.

[Abhishek R]

Water and Gatorade all day, stay hydrated (I generally try to stay away from soda while at the competition). If you aren't required for any work in the pit or out at the practice field, take a break and watch some matches, or just sit down when you can. I feel you, it can be pretty exhausting.

[Akash Rastogi]

It gets a little worse in districts. Match turn around time is kind of nuts at some events.

[philso]

Try wearing foam earplugs. I find the high noise level at FRC events makes me feel tired. You might also find a quiet spot somewhere to relax. Of course, you should know your match schedule and other team members should know where to find you.

[zinthorne]

Districts are very busy! I just drink tons of water and eat food whenever I can. And also do take breaks when you can...

[Sam_Mills]

When I drove we treated it as any other sport. We went to bed around 9-11 every night, ate clean, and drank lots of water. None of the "Pizza and Red Bull" diet you will often hear people brag about. We also split up the team so that we didn't have all 4 of our most competent students on the drive team. We had one drive team member who could program, but our other best programmer was in the pit, so that the drive team could recoup between matches.

If you have a mentor coach, this can be easy to enforce, but even with an all student drive team, mature driver quality students should be more than willing to take care of themselves to be at peak performance.

[MikLast]

Originally Posted by zinthorne

Districts are very busy! I just drink tons of water and eat food whenever I can. And also do take breaks when you can...

This. Especially at Districts, drink and be full. Im the human player this year, and while i am accustomed to being tired, it takes a lot out of you, and this really does help.

[April_robo]

I did way too much at competitions when I was the driver. I was always stressed out and thats what kept me going. But lots of water definitely helps. I also ate lots of fruits and veggies.

[Alyssa]

Make sure that they're eating three meals a day and going to bed my 9pm after comp. Also, Vitamin C drinks are great.

[DarkRune]

Oh where to start...
I'm our driver from last year and for this year. Last year at our second regional, I completely let myself go without knowing it. I ate near nothing, drank even less, and worked harder than I ever had before. The adrenaline kept me going through the competition, but I got home saturday night feeling great, after all we'd earned our ticket to champs, however come sunday morning my body refused to cooperate. I was severely dehydrated and couldn't move around the house. So after last year here's a couple of things I've come up with for this year:

Yes coffee tastes great, but you know what keeps you going longer than that burst of caffeine? A glass or two of water and a nice morning jog.

If something breaks in the match, well you tell the pit crew exactly what happens, that's what they are there for. Have faith, they are the almighty pit crew, they can and will fix everything. Go take a break, go for a jog, DRINK MORE WATER, watch a couple matches, talk to other teams, pit scout, talk to your scouters, engage the people in the stands. You are there to help your team succeed, everyone looks up to you, they will help you every way they can so return the favor and engage your teammates who are in the stands pulling those long scouting shifts.

For alliance selections, send someone else out. Let the drive team weigh their opinions in before hand and then send them to the stands or to go eat lunch during the selections. They're going to spend the rest of the break strategizing with their new partners, no time to eat then.

Most importantly, eat a filling dinner, do whatever strategy talks you need to with scouters and such, and then straight to bed. Drive team needs the sleep.

tl;dr: LOTS OF WATER, whatever your contribution in the pit is, someone else can do it better. Eat food whenever possible. And sleep, lots of sleep.

[MrTechCenter]

You don't know fatigued until you pushed your robot, cart (that had a bad steering wheel...), and driver station outside, up a two story ramp, then back inside just to get to the practice field. Oh, Sacramento Regional....

[Gdeaver]

Sleep banking and hydration are very important. At HH I noticed our drive team wearing down the last 2 matches of day one. They need to address this for the next competition.

[carpedav000]

I know from my experience in FTC as a driver that it definitely helps to stay hydrated and get like lots of sleep, but it also helps to keep your cool in any situation. Getting stressed out about a foul/penalty/robot breaking will only strain you more. If you are stressing out, just remove yourself from the situation, go talk to the scouters, or just watch a few matches.

[Lij2015]

If you're anything like me then you won't get tired until the event ends because the adrenaline of the event keeps you pumped up, but staying hydrated is key.

Our drive team always has a bottle of water with us and often we go up to the stands and watch matches between ours as the stands are so close(regionals, not districts I guess)