Custom Driver Stations

[elfenari]

We usually do driving with 2 attack pros and mechanism control with an Xbox controller. This year we switched out the attack pros for a single extreme3d because we are using mecanum drives. On our Xbox controller, the two triggers are used for up/down motion, and the a button to toggle our clamp. I'm the coach, and the way the drivers work together is pretty funny to me. Our driver 1 uses our second driver like a voice control for the robot.

[TheModMaster8]

Personally I believe one driver is better then two, as i know what im going to do but the person next to me doesn't, but to answer your question our team used Xbox controllers for both human and driver, and yes there was communication problems, though our human player was outstanding

[MikLast]

We used mecanum for the first time this year, so instead of our usual joysticks we got a logitech Extreme 3D pro joystick for our driver, and then we have a regular joystick for our forklift driver, and he has his own setup with custom buttons for auto-align and such.

As for working together, they have been our drivers for three years, and they worked really well together, and there wasn't much issue with communicating to the human player, (me.) We use arcade drive with one controller, our drivers find it easier to use the robot that way. We also rarely use the station window itself, just to choose our auto routine.

[GeeTwo]

Whether we have one driver or two is entirely a function of robot complexity. Our competition robot for Recycle Rush only had three CIMS (two drive, one lift) and no other actuators, so a single driver did it all through an xBox controller. We had two drivers that originally swapped off about halfway through the match based on their strengths; later we switched to a "primary/relief pitcher" model. We also used a single xBox for Aerial Assist (mecanum + 3 actuators); I believe we had a primary and a backup driver. For Ultimate Ascent and Rebound Rumble, I seem to recall that we had two separate controllers, one for the "main game" and another for the "end game". I think we used PlayStation for one and classic atari-style joysticks for the other both of those years. The drivers had a bit of cross-training, but for the most part they specialized in one part or the other. We have not done any "custom drive stations" beyond having a custom wooden structure to support and secure the COTS driver station and controllers; this year all we did was add some velcro to the classmate and controller so they didn't fall off the shelf.