Five Person Drive team in 2017

[ctt956]

Originally Posted by Justin Montois

Somebody has to be the Drone Pilot

Originally Posted by EricDrost

Possibly a true, teleoperated minibot?

My thoughts exactly. Maybe not a drone, but some sort of aircraft, or maybe a train.

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

Another possibility I thought up. What if the 4th drive team member is an optional button if you use a student as your "coach". So only 4 people on drive teams but you can either have 4 students or 3 students and one adult "coach". That way it would encourage* student coaches who could manipulate game pieces, touch controls, etc. And only adult coaches wearing the special button wouldn't be allowed to interact with game pieces, etc.

*I'm not saying it's something that should be encouraged but I can see the argument for it.

I think there's a possibility that it's to allow you to have a mentor in queue if you have a student coach.

Originally Posted by SenorZ

4th drive team member... Prepare to TAKE FLIGHT!

Jetpack game?

Originally Posted by KosmicKhaos

The spare button theory doesn't make sense. What if the coach looses their button? It also can't cost THAT much to make new buttons for each event. I mean we pay $4k an event, Id hope FIRST would be able to pay for new buttons every tournament.

However, a second Human Player is quite possible. This would mean that there could be two possible ways humans can interact with the robot, one of which not behind the glass.

A drone operator is also kind of impractical for obvious reasons but hey, it's fun to speculate

This.

Originally Posted by MARS_James

As a team who has used our second driver as a human player whenever it was legal to do so (trust me it wasn't always legal) I don't know if there is a way to use another human player for us.

However one cool thought that crossed my mind was if this person is a builder. Lets say the game either promotes modulation and this persons job is to swap out robot parts in a safe area where the robot is disabled (like the pressure pads in 2005) or they have to build the scoring component(s) basically part of the challenge is also how quickly the teams members can build interlocking puzzle game pieces even if only for the end game.

Honestly this thought crossing my mind will make the eventual explanation upset me cause I don't think it is as cool as that.

Also a possibility. Maybe something similar to how HPs could place totes in 2003, but only at the beginning of each match.

I think the coach button is an improvement over just the green dot. Since it's now clearly labeled as for the coach only, there should be less confusion. If that button is lost, the coach could use one of the regular buttons, but that wouldn't have the control restrictions, so I don't think that's quite it.