Driver's Test

[AmyPrib]

Originally Posted by Ethulin

It seems that with many of your comments here you assume the coach is a mentor. As a student coach many do not apply to our drive team.

As for many of the other posts:
Many of you have commented on how you must know the rules to drive effectively and avoid penalties. Drivers will preform the task at hand with FEWER things running through their heads.

There is nothing against the coaches standing right behind the drivers helping the drivers along.

That is great you are a student coach, but at the same time, as a student coach there is a lot of experience to be gained. My comments don't all assume that a coach is a mentor - maybe you think that because I said "kids" a lot. I say that because it's referring to drivers/ops/hps which are students. No matter whether you're a student or mentor coach, all of those things that I mentioned can apply to every driveteam so I'm not sure how many don't apply to your driveteam. None of us have the right answer for everything, but there are more experienced people trying to provide some helpful feedback.

As Ogre said, a coach's commands will be shorter and more efficient without having to dictate "don't hit that robot". It would come second nature to them "not to do whatever". If it takes 100% of their capacity to drive the robot, I am not sure that's great either. The entire driveteam should be able to think while doing their job. I also don't think the game rules are insane idiosyncracies that seem to be such a bother to remember. We are talking about game rules and penalties, not fix-it window rules. Nobody said anyone has to memorize the manual front to back, all sections.

Have you thought about the confusion and brain processing that has to take place when more words are yelled into a driver's ear? I think that is a lot worse than having them know things second nature. They don't really have to mentally compute what they already know.

I suppose I have contributed to this going a little further off topic, I just feel strongly about driveteams needing to know the game rules/penalties well. It can also be used as a guage to help determine who really wants the coveted positions. Some people are lazy and don't want to read the rules - they must not really want that job... that's is how I personally would see it. They aren't dedicated to knowing the game they are playing. If they aren't required to know the rules, that's a different story and each team has their own way.

Someone else asked how much should the drivers know. I agree that they don't really need to know dimensions or field specs. Our game test consists of basically game rules that pertain to the driveteam, what they need to know to stay out of trouble, they know what actions cause what point penalties, etc. They know what they can/can't do. And while the test doesn't ask them deep specifics about robot rules, they do know basics, but they also are part of the mechanical/elec teams so inherently know much more.

ps. as far as coaches standing behind their driveteam to help them argue a case - I am not sure you should count on that, as the head ref may not like that. If you are there, you have the temptation to speak, and I can bet that a head ref really won't want to wait around while a third party dictates in the driver's ear what they need to say. Head ref may not even allow the coach in the area while a discussion is taking place, who knows.

[Rick TYler]

I'll add one last thing (from me). I know some of those questions are picky, and one of them is a trick question. I want the drive team to obsess over those things BEFORE they get to the tournament. Right now, their heads are empty, they have plenty of time to study, and no one is standing behind them yelling.

There's also some self-confidence to be gained from knowledge. I want them overprepared now so that they are steady, confident, and calm (as much as possible) when the matches start. Besides, I had to ask the last question to get to an even 50.

[Ethulin]

Originally Posted by Rick TYler

I'll add one last thing (from me). I know some of those questions are picky, and one of them is a trick question. I want the drive team to obsess over those things BEFORE they get to the tournament. Right now, their heads are empty, they have plenty of time to study, and no one is standing behind them yelling.

There's also some self-confidence to be gained from knowledge. I want them overprepared now so that they are steady, confident, and calm (as much as possible) when the matches start. Besides, I had to ask the last question to get to an even 50.

So, this is where I stand:

It does not hurt for the drivers to know the rules. Infact I would encourage it. It does hurt their driving preformance if they are trying to run through the rules in their head rather than just listening to the coach. I think there are other much more important things to test in a driver, such as their ability to preform under pressure.