Drive Practice

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by beijing_strbow

We're looking to make some significant improvements this season over last - one of which is the amount of practice our drive team gets before competition. So, how do other teams handle this? Do you have a set time where the drive team gets the robot, or separate drive meetings, or something else?

We may or may not have the resources to build a practice bot, but in the case that we do, how much does the practice bot help with drive practice?

I remember having a conversation with Dan Kimura, the former drive coach of 469, at the 2011 MARC off season event, when we were going to do a mentor match with their robot. He admitted that being able to drive their 2011 robot well takes two hours of practice a day and that is one of the determining factor for choosing a driver is a willing to practice two hours a day to perfect operating the robot. I suspect that elite teams employ the same habits with their robots (you have to have a practice robot in order to do get the amount of practice needed to get the practice you need) and drive teams.