Does Your Drive Team Have Any Pre-Match Rituals?

[CalTran]

2410's has our well known hat tip.

When I was driver in 2013, we also did the "I believe" chant before matches while huddled in a circle. It got some strange looks while in queue.

[SpoonMechanic]

We always bang on the plexiglass, and the drive team is usually dancing behind the driver station before every match, just to relieve stress.

[Connor McBride]

We have someone yell watch your feet when they say drivers behind the line just in case someone wasn't paying attention. It's very effective.

[smitikshah]

Originally Posted by Connor McBride

We have someone yell watch your feet when they say drivers behind the line just in case someone wasn't paying attention. It's very effective.

Then I guess that makes us "Drive Team Pre-Match Rituals" buddies

[Anthony Galea]

Whenever we would place the robot on the field, I would give our human player a double high five, go to the alliance station, and give our operator and coach a double high five. It might seem stupid but it helped me stay positive and calm during the match.

[jeremy callahan]

When I was on 3098 we had a special ritual that is secret I believe they still do to this day so cant spill the beans and we also would when we won a match we would chew a piece of gum and when we lost start with none. after I graduated and moved on to 5053 we do a funny messing around when they call our names and I let the students choose what we do to relieve stress and have some fun before the match starts. There favorite was "Give it all the beans!" I think it came after i challenged them to go for 6 totes in recycle rush.

[troy_dietz]

During one of our later quals matches at IRI, we were waiting "on deck" and one of the members of our alliance pointed out that we had a seven wheel drive. I was puzzled for a few moments until I looked down and realized that our left rear wheel was missing. This was soon followed by our drive coach running back to the pit for allen keys and our driver and I frantically removing the bumper (which required deploying part of our climber) to attaching the wheel.

Thankfully, this doesn't happen too often, but our drive team had had their fair share of running (or power walking as fast as humanly possible) back to the pit to grab the team standard/fresh battery/3D printed camera mount/status light mount/ratchet pawl/programmer disguised with a safety captain button.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by troy_dietz

Thankfully, this doesn't happen too often, but our drive team had had their fair share of running (or power walking as fast as humanly possible) back to the pit to grab the team standard/fresh battery/3D printed camera mount/status light mount/ratchet pawl/programmer disguised with a safety captain button.

I should point out that this one doesn't work very often. Queuing tends to catch on pretty quickly.

That being said, I do recall hearing an announcement for a particular 330 programmer to go to somewhere near the field or pit back in my student days... Don't recall what about. Might have been shortly before the match where the drive team didn't quite catch that they were almost out of time in a timeout and came "speedwalking" with the robot on the cart to put it onto the field... right after the MC got the teams introduced. (Back in '04, for match 2 of a regional finals).

[troy_dietz]

Originally Posted by EricH

I should point out that this one doesn't work very often. Queuing tends to catch on pretty quickly.

Not when they're Dome staff!
(They seemed to swap around every hour or so)

We loaded code in queue behind the curtain a few times, but I don't remember doing it as we were waiting next to the field. By the time we got to Einstein, nobody really paid attention. They just wanted to robot connected to the FMS as fast as possible.

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by troy_dietz

...snip...
programmer disguised with a safety captain button.

Originally Posted by EricH

I should point out that this one doesn't work very often. Queuing tends to catch on pretty quickly.

Our driver has been our lead programmer for the past two years. This has some interesting drawbacks and benefits, such as the ability to make VERY last minute changes to autonomous code. We're at a little less than a 50% success rate on autonomous codes that we modified in the queue, but that's more than we deserve.

[dubiousSwain]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

Our driver has been our lead programmer for the past two years. This has some interesting drawbacks and benefits, such as the ability to make VERY last minute changes to autonomous code. We're at a little less than a 50% success rate on autonomous codes that we modified in the queue, but that's more than we deserve.

As I always say to my programming team:

There must always be a programmer on drive team...

[Cothron Theiss]

Originally Posted by dubiousSwain

As I always say to my programming team:

There must always be a programmer on drive team...

Since our Rookie Year, our Human Player is always someone on the build team to fix things that break, our two drivers are always programmers (to fix the things that break that the Human Player can't fix), and our Drive Coach is often the person who knows the rules the best, though we don't really select a drive coach with any specific criteria.

[dirtbikerxz]

As the driver my PreMatch ritual generally consists of:

1. Run between the alliance members and make sure they know the strategy, and (this year) remind them to be on the batter the last few seconds
2. jump up and down and wave my arms wildly
3. generally yell OH SH*T I DIDNT CHOOSE THE AUTO
4. choose the auto
5. triple check controllers
6. jump up and down a bit more and shake out my nerves
7. calm down and clear my head for a few seconds
8. grin really big at my team and say something along the lines of "let's do this"
9. hold arms out to make sure everyone is behind the line