What is more of an honor, Pit Crew or Drive Team?

[Spaztik Duck]

I've been on both and I don't think either is really more of an honor per say, but I definitely prefer pit.

Flight can be exciting, but it is a lot of pressure and there is so much going on it was pretty stressful for me.
Pit I really like tho. Most of what happens in the pits is just behind-the-scenes stuff. You have to know a lot in general to be on pit, but it's usually a lot of fun.

Both, however, have their own rewards of teamwork. While on flight you get to learn about working in conjunction with another team. It's a good leson in quick thinking and teamwork which is cool. While, at the same time pit if there is something one team needs all they have to do is ask the pit next to them or a couple pits down. Everyone in the pits is ready to share their tools and their knowledge and thats what's most important to me.

[tkwetzel]

Originally Posted by DarkJedi613

I dont know which is more of "an honor" but I enjoy being on the Pit Crew more since I find it more fun to be able to know hot everything works then to be able to drive it.

Most studetns already help build the robot, so they should all already understand how it works, so driving is extra on top of knowing how to build and fix-it. I think being able to drive it adds to the excitement, knowing that you helped build it and now you get to compete with it.

[JamesCH95]

I would say they are an equal honor if your team has all-student drive teams and pit crews like ours, our coaches do very little at the competitions. They are both equally vital to the success of a team; if your pit crew is so inept that the battery does not get charged, what good is a crack drive team?

[team222badbrad]

Both are equally important.

When I was in highschool I did both jobs.

I guess you could say it is more prestigious to drive the robot.
"I drove the robot to victory!"

However, there is the flip-side.
"I fixed the robot that you drove to victory!"

[Evan Austin]

Having been on the human player my first year then driver last year, as well as pit crew both years, my vote has to go to the pit crew. It is fun to be up behind the drivers station at competitions, but I do not enjoy it as much as maintaining the robot. In some ways I think it is more of a challenge to work on the pit crew. Even though driving is more stressful considering the total amount of time that the robot is on the field, there is not much more daunting of a task than getting a badly beaten robot back to operating condition in such a short time as we have at competition
I liked driving and all, but I'd rather be behind the scenes than in front of them.

[Collmandoman]

neither..
everyone that learned about engineering and technology during the season
The competition is a fattening dessert to a 6 week meal

[tiffany34990]

Yes, it is credited to everyone. I find though in my team the driver and operator generally are in the pit crew. But really the pit crew as a whole isn't honored. It is just the driver and operator and human player when the game is won. All well. I'm in the pit and I worked hard and I know it but never get credited for anything. Everyone works hard though because it's a team and as people always say there is no I in teamwork.

Really though it's a huge honor to be part of a team and of FIRST.

I applaud all members of every team for what each of you do. Everyone has a way of helping the team.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I think the honour is a really personal thing. As Arefin said very very eloquently, everyone deserves the credit. However, I've noticed that all students have different priorities.

I am not on the mechanical portin of my team, yet the greatest honor ever was to be chosen to do Chairman's award presentation becasue I was a rookie and all eager and stuff. If you ask a student what they want to do, they may be happy with anything from talking to media to driving. Everyone has their own interests, and the ideal pit crew or drive team sees their respective roles as the best they could give to the team.

[Conor Ryan]

remember, you can't drive unless it works. plus if its not working, then its the drivers fault. PIT CREW!

[Cory]

Drive team will always be the glamor position. Being on the pit crew is a lot like being the punter on a football team. They never get the credit they deserve, yet perform an invaluable task.

[tribotec_ca88]

Originally Posted by Cory

Drive team will always be the glamor position. Being on the pit crew is a lot like being the punter on a football team. They never get the credit they deserve, yet perform an invaluable task.

Exactly...and it's kind of like show biz, you've got the drivers or "actors" which play an important role in representing (their team, in this case), and the behind-the-scenes crew which are key elements to making it all work as a whole. I don't think there's one that's more important than the other, although the drive team does seem to get more credit (those overpaid actors!!). Both are demanding and exciting, it's simply a matter of being in the limelight or not...

[danield710]

i think that every person on the team is important as long as they do something to help the team..im in the pit and im a driver, and i believe that both are equally important, because the pit is where most of the work is done fixing the bot, hours are spent in the pit fixing the robot, and the drivers an important job as well, because they have to perform well in order to get in a good place
i believe that the people who dont work in the pit or drive are equally important...for example every team needs good scouting reports or they wouldnt know what strategy to use in each match, and also team needs fans in the stands for moral support, our team usually doesnt have that many fans because we dont have that many people, but the teams that have a bunch of fans in the stands have a lot of support

[hsvex]

Every position on the team is equally important. View it like football: the QB (Drive Team) gets the spotlight but without the offensive line (Pit Crew) there will be nothing accomplished. Either poistion is glorified equally.

I am a member of Programming/Control Systems/Driver so I relized how valuable communcation between different groups of teams are to the success of the team as a whole.

[Josh Hambright]

Personaly,
I thinkwe should all feel honored for being involved in FIRST period. I know that i have felt honored to be a part of this program in many jobs, from driver, to pit crew, to webmaster, to video editor, to announcer at competition, to college student, to general volunteer, all of them have been an amazing honor.
The honor from any given job is not so much what your doing but how you do it, the hardest working garbage man deserve more honor then the laziest super hero.

[meiv4]

anyone with hours of practice can drive a robot, especially with controls as easy as a stearing wheel (go our programmers) but pit crew people acually have to have a clue how stuff works on the robot. much more knowledge and work in that one.