Driver Stress?

[Drake]

The best thing a driver can do is to ignore everything, and only think of yourself as the robot. Visualize yourself as the robot, and imagine that the arm can power itself.

Last year I was a co-driver(meaning I was the arm handler) and I noticed that when me and the robot driver zoned out, and ignored everything but the robot and the match we did a lot better. Especially when you have an annoying mentor who inserted himself into the match. This year I am the main driver, since I spent the most time on the robot. We finished the robot a few days early, so we would show up the last few days and we had a training session. We had two of our old robots up and working, a side note: Our robot from last year was one of the few that could pick up the huge yellow balls, so this year we were picking up tetras with the arm that shot out and we could cap the smaller goals, for a picture of that robot go to http://sjharobotics.org/?page=robots . So we had out lab room that we work in set up with a lower goal, and two robots running around and playing against this year's robot. The self declared knower of rules, otherwise known as the self-inserted mentor, was standing behind me, and annoyed me so much I was about to turn around and leave. But, after a while another of our mentors took me aside and told me to ignore everything and just pretend I was the robot. Soon after I was driving the robot faster, with greater accuracy, and we we capping tetras faster, and higher.

My freshman year we were doing really well, and during the last few preliminary matches we screwed up royal. So when the driver came back from leaving our robot at our pit we chewed him out so bad that he left for a while and came back. I felt bad for the guy because I had him in a few classes and he had helped me out with a few problems, so I took it upon myself the last three years to try and eliminate a lot of criticism.

Even if they critic me, I will just turn around and walk off. The Silicon Valley Regional is located in a nice school, and you can always walk outside of the event center and go and sit under a tree and watch squirrels

So just ignore any comments, unless they are good, and you will do a much better job, with a lot less pressure.

[BillyGoats]

Stress? hahah.. Last year I was the operator and the driver and I both slept while waiting for our next match (not really slept but you get the idea). We would walk around, go sit in the stands and then with about 20-30mins before the match we would go scout our opposition and talk to our alliance. There really is no stress, and I believe this was because we had a robot that rarely broke and when it did break it could be fixed with in 5 minutes. We knew our robot would perform and all we have to do is what we were good at. Even in the elimination rounds of The Championship Event and Battle Cry @ WPI and the finals of UCF, the Beantown Blitz, and Mayhem on the Merrimack there was really no stress, we were 100% confident.

The only time there was even a little stress (if you can call it that) is the first practice round of the year. Then after that its 100% stress free!

This might be because we were always too tired to be stressed out, but not to tired to win 3 of the 5 events we attended?

[Rabbit222]

To all nervous or stressed out drivers: Do what Henry222 said. Its best to go on that floor do your match and have fun knowing that you did your best whether you win or you loose. Being nervous or scared is something that should be avoided. I had this feeling operating in the off season last year and it got the best of me. My one tip to all drivers, "Just do what you do!" No worries HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!

[bombadier337]

I was arm guy, and it was extremely stressful when paied with weak alliances and in the finals. Trying to get the robot ready for a match in four minutes was crazy, thankfully a lot of people loaned us batteries, etc. What was the worst was waiting for about an hour or so to go. They made a mistake with the staging, led us on the field, then when we were about to go told us to get off and wait a while. We then did the same thing again about 20 minutes later. It took so long before we actually got to play, and we were soooo stressed out. Luckily, we still did pretty well.

*I might add we were trying to get to Nationals, and our going or not going was dependent on our performance in the finals. Unfortunately, we are not going. :-(

[KoRnPoP]

It was alot of stress upon the time. First reason because it was my first time ever driving and everyone was really depending on me. Also we didn't really know what to expect being out first year. But after going a few time I think I just didn't think about being stressed.

[JohnnyB]

Another tip of reallllly bad advice: I found that the actual driving and setup is a lot less stressful if you screw something up and have like 50 people yelling at you as you try to figure something out or fix it or whatever.

Example: At FLR I was nervous for the first few matches on practice day. Later it was gone. Come friday it was back stronger cause I knew it was qualifying rounds and I didnt wanna mess up.

I didnt realize that we had one of the first matches of the day (if not THE first match of the day) and I ran down to the pits to get the OI and head out to the field. When I went in, I had forgotten my operator badge. As soon as I walked out to the queue I got yelled at by the queuing lady. Paul was in the backround yelling "choke!" at me (he was probably thinking I was too nervous and became forgetful and thus "choked").

Luckily JVN grabbed the OI from me and handed it to my team while I ran back to the pits to get my badge. I was real stressed for a match or two after that, but as soon as it passed, the stress of the matches became nothing.

*Added*
Don't forget to dance... there is always a good minute or two before matches start where you just stand there and wait for scoring to finish and the volunteers to setup. If you arent busy discussing strategy or anything, utilize it to relax yourself and have a bit of fun.

[Anthony Kesich]

I ended up being thrown in as the arm operator by default. We had a local TV station come by and a few teams demonstrated their robots. We had finished rebuilding the arm on thursday. I reprogrammed it to use the new stuff, so I was the only one who knew how it worked. They had me operate it "just for the news" and then decided I knew it well enough to operate us the rest of the time.

I'll say that I'm not that good of a driver. I don't have any special talent. The way I make sure I succeed is to never stop thinking. For those 2 minutes, I never let my brain phase out. I'm always thinking about my next move and what button I will have to push. It's exhausting, but it means I only screwed up and pressed the wrong button twice in twenty-two matches.

-Tony K

[Bharat Nain]

Originally Posted by Anthony Kesich

I'll say that I'm not that good of a driver. I don't have any special talent.
-Tony K

I don't think you require any special talent to drive other than common sense and a little practice and a little dedication. Based on my experience last year, I can tell you that the job is definitely stressful, but you have to learn to get around that. Joke around, enjoy the music, dance, just do anything fun. Don't wait in the queing line with a sour face filled with nervousness. It does no good. Remember, you are at the competition just to have fun, get inspired and learn more than just go there for the sole purpose of winning. I am not saying that teams don't do that. They do, and they succeed. But when you think about it, it all comes down to what is FIRST about. Always keep that in mind when you are at competitions. As far as actual driver stress goes, it is definitely a lot. Sometimes it involves sitting up late nights studying the data gathered by scouts, or simply going on soap108s to look at the videos. I think if you can prepare your mind for all this you will be fine. The key to winning the competition is to know how to play the game, know the robot, and know your opponents.

Good luck,
-Bharat

[Anthony Kesich]

True, there is a lot of stress. I don't want to let my team down. This is the first year we've done well and pulled our own weight.

I really don't notice the stress, though, until finals. Before that, you have time to cool off. During finals, its way too rapid. I drive it, pull it off, recharge the tanks, tighten screws, reprogram it, check everything again, drive again, repeat. Thats when I start demanding caffeine from my team.

-Tony K

[KTorak]

The first practice match was horrible, I was a nervous/stressed wreck...It was my first time at a competition..meaing my fiorst time as a robot driver. I just didn't want to do anything and mess up horribly. I got better through out the day and me and my driving partner could consistantly cap 3, maybe 4 goals easily.

[Michael Leicht]

Originally Posted by Rabbit222

My one tip to all drivers, "Just do what you do!" No worries HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!

i have to agree with rabbit here just chill out and have some fun with the matches. your not going to lose your life if you mess up a match. I know starting out with your first year driving can be stressful but once you get use to your coach yelling and everyone else yelling then you are set. another thing is as a driver i have notice that i blank out during matches and just drive. i think i just become a tool of the coach and drive the robot how he says i should. that is the best thing. last thing i can say about driving or just a comment to get over the stress listen to some music get a catchy song in your head, and Don't think i say this is cause your mind play games with you saying lets do this or no lets do that. and that is when you lose control and you can't control your robot cause your mind is not made up. so just don't think about what you are going to do just drive let the coach think about what you are doing that is why we have coaches.

all drivers on the East Coast PM about our Drivers Union. or see me at NJ if you are going. stop by team 303 pit to get some info about the East Coast Drivers Union.

[BRAVESaj25bd8]

Second Year Manipulator. It wasn't so tough last year because Eric Palmatier was a senior and the head driver. He took me under his wing and showed me how to communicate and stuff. The driving part is easy. It's the communication and extra stuff that is tough to get accostomed to. Hehehe. JohnnyB I took a tetra from you when you were about to cap. I'm sure you'll get me back at nationals though . I agree that your coach is very dedicated and intense and you must have very good focus.

[Evan Austin]

I would say that the most stressful time as a driver was last year at Great Lakes when we hadn't gotten to run any of the practice runs on thursday and to have to go out on friday morning to drive a robot, which I had never done before. Luckily I had some experience with driving a skid-steer loader at work, which uses joysticks like the robot did, so it was at least familiar. As for actually driving, I was really nervous up until the MC announced who the teams were, then I forgot to be nervous. I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but when I was driving, I couldn't even hear the crowd screaming at me (cheering or otherwise). It was fun, but I would still rather work on the robot than drive the robot.

[Garth1388]

I was stressed at first because I thought that if something went wrong it would be blamed on me, but our first practice match I got 3 penalties and flipped over. And nobody yelled at me too much, so it took away alot of the stress.

I did get a little nervous right before (there's nothing like looking through that lexan with your steering wheel and throttle in hand), but during comp we decided to abandon our arm entirely because it wasn't working correctly so I was told to drive "defensively", which I took to mean ram the crap out of the other bots. After that first hit I didn't feel nervous at all untill about 5 mins before the next round.

One thing that I did to help relieve stress is carry my drumsticks around with me, and just spin them and hit em on anything I could. VERY relaxing.

[SirLancelot]

I'm not a driver, but I wanted to thank all of the people courageous enough to go out there and drive these lovely robots. Somebody has to do it, and our drivers have done a wonderful job. We've not been without our mistakes, but.....Oh- one tip:make sure that all of the PWM cables are firmly connected to your victors before the matches. We ended driving in circles because of a faulty connection, and it was not fun. COngratulations to all you drivers out there!