Does Your Drive Team Have Any Pre-Match Rituals?

[hutchMN]

Everyone on our drive team is going to take a spoon full of maple syrup before every match at IRI to channel our inner simbot.

[aJASONt_angles]

For 4272's Drive Team this year we would say "A good turn for good luck" and each member of our drive team would tighten a different nut on our bumper assembly.

It was also great for making sure our bumpers were on and secure.

I think it is very important to have a pre-match ritual, like a golfer taking off his glove before putting, it is important to get ready and focused for every match. If your team doesn't already have one it's never too late to make one!

[ASD20]

Telling the queuer that came to visit our pit that we are on our way.

[kristinweiss]

At the beginning of the season, my 3D printed princess crown got broken so I designed and printed a new one in ninjaflex. At my team's first district event of the season, our main driver asked to wear it because he said that it gave him mojo and our team ended up winning the event. Two weeks later, I was cheering on a friend's team at an out of state regional. Their lead driver was not feeling super confident going into elims so I let him wear the crown and they ended up becoming finalist and getting a wildcard to worlds. The crown ended up being named the "Mojo Crown" and helped our team seed first at our other district event and at the district champs, and helped our team advance the farthest we have ever gone at worlds.

[EDesbiens]

Breaking the robot is probably the best pre-match/match ritual... Either it breaks because something got changed and wasn't done correctly, either it breaks during the game. Oh, and trying to convince a friendly human player to be the spy to help us shoot

[JesseK]

Last year our most extraverted lead driver (ever) did "high-fives all around" for every match. In elims he'd do it with the entire alliance. Pretty fun.

[Chris is me]

GUS's ritual this year involved hopping as the team is being announced, then doing this weird thing where you lean back and wiggle your arms like noodles. Occasionally, someone does The Dab at the end.

The pre-match ritual I think is really important to the success of a drive team, no matter how silly it is. Generating some hype, unity among your drive team, building excitement, and focusing on something that isn't directly related to the match ahead are all positive things sometimes. If your hype is elaborate enough, going into that match with an early "win" in pulling off your little ritual / routine is always nice.

In a few matches this year, we had a very long wait time before they started, and out of boredom more than anything else we just generated lots of hype with the entire alliance in advance of the match. We won every one of those matches and it was even more exciting than normal - there was so much unity on the alliance.

[Michael Corsetto]

Before every elimination match:

I ask the drive team: "What are we gonna do?"

The required response: "Have fun!"

Repeat ~3 times.

This helps remind our whole drive team unit why we do what we do. It's especially important when playing deep into Saturday and students can have a tendency to be stressed/nervous. Also manages to get a smile out of the kids occasionally

-Mike

[jdesmond]

We have too many to count...

[bearbot]

Being on drive team and now being the coach on the field the last year theirs several that the team and I do .As the drive coach I push the robotics cart and hold a specific bumper on the robot every season and I wear my cap backwards during every regional and district event.Recently, in the last few years our drive team in recent years we have been discussing what silly dance moves where doing during driver introductions and to get hype .If we Win our match our next match is a silly dance move if we lose, then its a simple hands clap.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

I'll say it since I don't believe anyone else has yet:

- Carry robot onto the field
- Turn robot on
- setup driver station
- go over match strategy with driver one last time

[JABot67]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

I'll say it since I don't believe anyone else has yet:

- Carry robot onto the field
- Turn robot on
- setup driver station
- troll CD
- go over match strategy with driver one last time

Looks like quite the short pre-match checklist. So you don't put the cart out of harm's way? Line up the robot for auton? Select the auton mode decided upon during alliance strategy?

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by JABot67

Looks like quite the short pre-match checklist. So you don't put the cart out of harm's way? Line up the robot for auton? Select the auton mode decided upon during alliance strategy?

Cart - nope. That's what field reset is for <joke>
Line up robot - that's the robot's job
select auton - my robot has one autonomous; (Pokemon) GO.

[TheBoulderite]

We used to have a driver that would buy boxes and boxes of Milk Duds before regionals and eat them in between matches for energy.

[Jonny_Jee]

In 2014 My co driver and I used to do a Shake 'n Bake fist bump before the after placing the robot on the field.