Picking Drivers?

[AmyPrib]

Originally Posted by phrontist

I'd make tryouts mandatory for all robotics team students and do them in front of the whole school at an assembly (to simulate the pressure of competition). Have an obstacle course that each student runs and whoever has the best time is the driver. If that driver is deemed uncommitted to the team, they are removed from the team and the next best person becomes driver.

First, I don't understand why you'd make every single student on the team be required to try out for driveteam roles. As some have said, not everyone WANTS to be on the driveteam. Some are much better and comfortable as part of the design, build, debug, fix, etc parts of the team. Why would anyone want to force them to do something they don't want to? As it is, FIRST is mainly a voluntary organization.
Just because someone doesn't want to be on the driveteam, doesn't mean they're not committed. So you're saying that if a forced student doesn't do well on an obstacle course, they should be assumed uncommitted, and kicked off the team? Do you mean, team in general, or just drive team?

I think there's a certain point to which you can "strongly encourage" some students to try out for driveteam roles, even if they're seemingly uninterested. But, if a student blantantly is not interested in driving, then why waste yours and their time? If you see even a little bit of interest, you can strongly encourage them to go for it... I would think most teams encourage all their students to try out to begin with, but they don't force them. Just doesn't make sense to me to make that type of thing mandatory. But that's my opinion.

Our team asks the team who's interested in these roles, and many of them want to try out.. So we have different types of tests using the game's features, and based on many things, we narrow it down to a couple people per position. We normally have each person try out during our first regional as well, and then try to narrow it down to 1 per position for second regional and Nationals. Works out pretty good.