Competition Team

[Perseus]

I have noticed that at the regionals this year that many teams have different competition teams, which rotate driving the matches. I was wodering how many teams do this. Also, will the same thing be done at Nats? Does the "team" that scores the most points or wins the most games get the nod when it comes to elimination rounds?

If youdo use this kind of system, just tell me all about it becaus i am really curious.

[Ian W.]

we sorta have this. although, it doesn't seem to work. of course, if we made it work, it could, but we didn't think one person would be driving, until he forced his way into the drive team.

[Perseus]

i dont fully understand what your mean

[Digo]

in team 60, everyone that wants to drive, drives.
It's written in that thread "60's best kept secrets".

In my team, only the best ones are able to be in the field. There are a coulpe of people that can also drive, if something happens to the main ones.

[fast frank]

we have two sets of drivers on team 271. but we keep the drivers in all the time, they alternate between driving and being the human player. this system seems to be working pretty well for us. the stand-by driver helps guide the active driver, alerts him of incoming opposing robots, available goals. etc...

1. driver 1
2. operator 1
3. driver 2 (human player)
4. mentor

or

1. driver 2
2. operator 2
3. driver 1 (human player)
4. mentor

[Andrew Rudolph]

We tried switching drivers around but we didnt like the results. when you leave one driver in they gain experience. Also, as drivers work together they build up chemistry and eventually they can get robots to do amazing tricks and sometimes tey dont even need to talk to eachother they just know. We find that switching coaches on the other hand is a good thing. The reason being that each time u have another person go up you can get new ideas on things to do when things go wrong. And then there isnt so much stress on that one person during the competiton.




Andrew

[fast frank]

we also switch between 2 mentors. this way they can sit outside and see what's going on and get some ideas, so when they are on the inside, they'll know more. this stratagey is working for us too.

[Gui Cavalcanti]

I've always been the primary driver, and my team has never rotated me out. We also have a master strategist (student mentor) that got us through VCU who is always in the operator station because he knows the 'bots we're up against and yells me tips during the round.

Our human player and secondary driver get to rotate - there are 3 or 4 human players that can take up the position rather successfully, and our secondary driver only has two buttons, the goal grabber in/out and the compressor cycling off/on. They're not allowed to touch the compressor cycling button

So yeah, the only real position that rotates throughout the entire team is the secondary driver. Note, however, that we only employ students in our drive team (no adult mentors).

[ComBBAT_Albrot]

Our drive team/human player remains the same (unless outside factors change that), but we swap out our mentors every match.

Scott and Rick (mentors) have a little competition going.. Scott is proud because he went undefeated during QPs at Philly, but he didn't get two 120 point rounds like Rick did. Trash talking abounds.

[K. Skontrianos]

Our line up is the same throughout the competition. We alternated drivers in practice, then I was chosen to drive for the rest of the competition. This helps to gain experience with the game and the robot. Chemistry is also important to be successful. I feel confident with the arrangement we have for Florida. Good luck to all the teams!

[Kit Gerhart]

We have initial "tryouts" for driver, operator, and human player before the regionals. Then, at our first regional we rotate the people who were the best in the tryouts. This allows us to find out how they do under pressure, and gives us additional opportunity to evaluate performance. This year we rotated two drivers, three operators, and three human players. Before the elimination rounds at our first regional (Cleveland this year), we make the difficult decision of picking the "best" operators so we can, hopefully, perform as well as possible for our alliance partners.

Once we settle on "primary" drivers and human player, we stay with those people unless there is a very good reason to change.

[Jeff Waegelin]

We have a set drive team of four people for our drive team, but we had to change human players in Chicago because our human player in Cleveland couldn't go to Chicago. Our other three drive team members stayed the same.

[team60]

We decided that this year we would allow anyone who wanted to drive the opportunity to do so. So we have 4 drive teams that alternate. Each team has a driver and co-driver, and we have 3 human players. We also rotate 2 mentors in so everyone who wants the "FIRST Experience" on the field can do so. We also simplified our drive system this year by adding a steering wheel for the driver.

If you have any other questions we will be happy to answer them in Florida!

[PsychoPhil]

Yepp, team 885 also has two sets of drivers/coaches!

One set drove in NJ the other one in Canada.

But this really sucks!!!

Have your own little scrimmage within the team and select one set of drivers and maybe spare driver who are ONLY allowed to drive, if somehting ahppens to the #1 drivers...

We drove pretty well in NJ (set #1 of drivers) but since we didn't have any scouting our alliance wasn't the best and we couldn't do anything more in the qarterfinals than to loose.

Then in Canada, since I wasn't driving anymore (set #2 drove) I made all the strategy with the coach from set #1 and we did excelent scouting and got a pretty good alliance, but since the driving didn't work too well we went out in the quarterfinals again.

Conclusion: You need good drivers and good scouters at tournaments! Neither works without the other...

set #2 was a little weaker because the coach had never seen te robot before the practice day and one of the drivers had never driven the robot before!!! This was a buymmer, but "we had to give everybody a chance" (<-- teamleader)

well, it was fun to drive...
so long, Phil

PS: c ya at the nats anyways, the coach from set #1 (Cate) and me are going down with team 343 to have fun and watch....

[Mark Hamilton]

We use the same drive team all the time, except the drivers alternate between driver and operator. As a driver, I can tell you that practice makes perfect, and not just in handling the robot. As a group you get better at working togethor and that will clearly show through in your matches.