Drive Team Chemistry

[lark95]

I have been on the drive team as primary driver for two years and had the privilege of being able to watch 3 years of of our teams previous drive teams work together. One thing i have noticed is that some years are better than others.

I have noticed a couple of key elements that contribute to a very professional and competent drive team.

The first would be that the best drive teams do not always have the best drivers when they are first chosen. When picking a drive team i would pick dedication and perseverance any day over the fastest time around an obstacle course. drive team members need to be extremely dedicated. Arguably the most dedicated members of the team, willing to spend hours every day driving the robot, and repeating drills over and over. They need to be perfectionists, understanding that they are never done. Even if they've become "good" at driving, there is always more they can work on. They should never need to be asked to practice, or to do a drill again, or pestered to practice more. They need to want to do it themselves, and get angry and hold others accountable when for some reason they can't practice, or something is preventing them from practicing.
Good reflexes, good decision-making, the knowledge of what can break and when it's all right to push your robot that extra step. Look for people who will back up to get a ball instead of turning around to pick it up, then turn around again to score it. Look for people who understand things will break, and that in some matches you may need to keep going even if it gets worse (elimination matches or sometimes high-priority matches) and some matches where it's alright to stop and be careful for the duration. Also, make sure they're aggressive enough to not back away from hitting something for a point, but not overly aggressive to get penalties or to hit things just to hit things. It's a balance that is hard to find and realize sometimes.

The second thing that i have noticed is that there has to be one person on the drive team that is the leader. A person who is willing to take responsibility for the others and is willing to take the flak for a bad match or poor performance. this person will grow to become the drive team captain. This is not a spot that should be assigned, but it is something that will just happen in a good drive team.
Having one person that is the drive captain gets rid of allot of problems. If you have a very skilled but meek driver this driver will no longer be worried about messing up but will be able to focus on driving and not the consequences of a small or large mistake.
There have been a few times when i have seen Key drive team members tell other students and mentors on the team to come to them first with any complaints or problems with the drive team. Unfortunately this was right after a mentor had just chewed out a freshman secondary drive and sent them off sobbing. Behavior like this should be completely unacceptable on a FIRST team.

The last thing is certainly more of a personal preference than anything. I feel that you should not switch out drive team members at a regional because you think they are not driving good enough. This is just always put a added pressure on the drive team that really is not needed. Of course an exception to this would be if a drive team member was doing something against team policy for all students.

Well that is my thoughts on drive team. I could be way off my rocker but take from it what you want.

P.S. Here is a paper that i have. I did not write it . It is just a bunch of stuff off of Chief Delfi that i sort of compiled.