Choosing Drivers

[lenny8]

in our team first the mentors look at the students attendance,leadership skills,work ethic and diside whos qualified. then we have a series of driving test with diffrent situations with diffrent people matched up for both postions. then the mentors make the decision.

[H0WSY0URCAT]

About the racing games to find the best driver......I am the worst at racing games and i was told by some of my mentors and other team's mentors that i am one of the best drivers they have seen. I think it all comes down to hand eye coordination and dexterity and also if they do well under pressure.

[WhiteShadow1474]

I for sure can say that driving an FRC robot is much different than driving a tricked out ride in need for speed. It's not all about speed. It's about control. You also need to be able to take all types of pressure. Pressure from your teammates and alliance members. You basically are representing 6 weeks of your team's blood sweat and tears. I knew that i did not want to disapoint my team.

[lukevanoort]

Racing games and robot driving make use of some similar natural (and developed) aptitudes. If I have naturally fast reflexes and strong hand-eye coordination then I am probably better at both racing games and robot driving than a similar person lacking those qualities. However, this is true of many things; for example, competitive martial arts share even more qualities with robot driving (rapid strategizing, hand-eye, reflexes, peripheral vision, stressful environment), but its pretty clear that holding a martial arts tournament is probably not a great way to select a driver.

In the end, the only way to really determine if someone is a good driver is to have them drive at a competition. I have seen people who are quite good drivers in testing lose a lot of their talent when placed into the stressful competition environment. Conversly, some people perform much better under stress. So, since you can't really hold a full competition just to find drivers, your best bet is to replicate the competition environment as closely as possible, find the person who performs the best, and then let that person practice as much as possible. (practice being the key element, even a terrible driver can become decent with enough practice)

[Kakashi1261]

I was one of the drivers last year for 2008, and I am driving again this year, but what I am not seeing a lot of comments on is the stress and pressure. I know that I was not the only one in that whole Georgia Dome that was stressed out, heart racing faster than any robot. So My suggestion is to invite students, teachers, and just random people to watch them practice, and get them to watch the driver closely. This is the only simulation I can come up with that can partly compare to a regional.
Some teams, Like ours, gets the chance to go to a practice regional before we ship the robot, so that is a great place to hold try-outs.

[Shelbo]

On our team everyone practices driving and then the mentors make the final decision before competitions start.

Another thing you should consider when selecting drivers is the amount of socializing and alliance strategizing the drivers do... pick someone who wont mind communicating with others both on and off the team, can handle the stress and knows the game.

[Kit Gerhart]

Originally Posted by H0WSY0URCAT

About the racing games to find the best driver......I am the worst at racing games and i was told by some of my mentors and other team's mentors that i am one of the best drivers they have seen. I think it all comes down to hand eye coordination and dexterity and also if they do well under pressure.

That is an interesting comment. I am one who disagrees with some people on my team who think being good at games makes you good at robot driving. It sounds like you confirm my thoughts. It would be possible to make a game that simulates driving our robots, but the regular games do not. Our robots all have their handling characteristics which are a lot different from what most games would do with the same control inputs. Maybe I also discount the relevance of games because I am relatively good at driving robots (for someone about 45 years too old to be FIRST-eligible), though I have very VERY little experience with video games. I figure maybe the R/C airplane flying and R/C car racing helped in my case, but who knows.

Anyway, the bottom line, as many have stated, is that knowledge of the rules, knack for game strategy, ability to take pressure, and having the right attitude are at least as important in making a good driver as having good "stick skills," though the stick skills are very important.

A last comment... We select our drivers "starting from scratch" every year. Sometimes a returning drive team member will keep the job, and sometimes not, but every team member who meets our general requirements to travel to the competitions is given the chance to try out for drive team positions if they want to.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Kit Gerhart

Maybe I also discount the relevance of games because I am relatively good at driving robots (for someone about 45 years too old to be FIRST-eligible), though I have very VERY little experience with video games. I figure maybe the R/C airplane flying and R/C car racing helped in my case, but who knows.

The most recent FIRSTCast discussed this topic. I do remember R/C being brought up. That's actually going to be a bit better than racing video games.

[nnfuller]

I have to say i agree with the idea of looking for people who solve problems well under pressure. I may not be the best driver on my team at all times, but when it comes down to a real competition i seem to handle the pressure better. Also people who know how the robot works are more capable of problem solving should you have a malfunction mid round. I know that when we had someone who didn't have a main role in the construction of the drive train and a motor blew he lost it because he couldn't understand the problem and no amount of video games will teach you how your robot works.

[Gboehm]

This is a quote from another post I made about a year ago, as lame as it sounds I do believe it. The driver needs to know every little quirk of the robot. As a driver I could do things with some of my bots that no one else could replicate, because I knew my bot. You need to know precisely what will happen.


"The driver must have a relationship with the robot, the driver should talk to the robot, speak soft encouraging words to it. Pet names are also a good idea. If the driver does not love the robot, how can the driver learn to trust the robot. The driver-robot relationship is one of love, if you love the robot, she/he will never fail you, she will go that little bit, the limits can be pushed, and she will take ya the distance that equals the amount of love you have for her. I can think of some of the greatest conversations I had with my robot, she never let me down. I loved that robot... It brought a tear to my eye when she was scrapped for parts... "



The driver should always be the one who turns the robot on and give it the last once over.

Oh and I hate video games...

Originally Posted by thefro526

One of the biggest things to remember is that Driving is not entirely about skill. It's about teamwork, so you may find a kid who's a complete ringer behind the sticks but if he can't work with his co-driver, HP and Coach then why have him on the field. Also it's good to look into who would be the best Drive Team rather than who will be the best Driver, Operator and HP.

Exactly. In the past my team has always selected the Base Driver based on skill, but not really examined anything else. For the new team I'm mentoring, here's the process they'll go through upon testing:

1. Students who want to be the driver can sign up. Same for students who want to be an operator. From then on we throw all the possible permutations onto a table, and the testing begins!
2. We test each operator Squad in a short (1 minute!) emulation of the game. For this year, we're going to be moving a trashcan around between "scoring windows", since we don't have trailers. The Squad that scores the highest will drive the bot.

We're hoping this will emulate the real field situation as much as possible. In order to make the test closer to the actual competition, we'll be blasting music at them, as they play wearing scratched up safety glasses. Should be fun!


Also, here's the advice I give my drivers: "Drive it like you stole it." It's the pit crew's job to make sure the bot is in good condition, the driver shouldn't have to worry about that. We'll keep the machine running, you make it your world out there. In the words of Randy Couture, "Impose your will" upon the field, and the rest will follow.

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by nnfuller

I have to say i agree with the idea of looking for people who solve problems well under pressure. I may not be the best driver on my team at all times, but when it comes down to a real competition i seem to handle the pressure better.

This is an interesting point. In 2004, when I was a student, I was selected to be the HP. For those who don't remember, HP's played a huge role in that game, scoring similarly to the HP's in this year's game. I wasn't the best shooter in the world, but I understood the strategy of the game and obsessively watched matches that year. At any given competition, I could tell you the tendencies of every other team there. Did they like to hang? When did they typically go for the bar? How good was their HP? I was like an NFL coordinator on the field. There was a student who was better at shooting than I was, but he was a sophomore and I was a senior and a co-captain, so I got the nod. In Atlanta that year, I went 0-5 in a match that we lost by 5 points. One made basket would have tied and two would have won it for us. I walked off the field and handed the HP button to Pat. All of the strategy in the world couldn't match on the skills he had.

Of course, the real stinger was at IRI that year, when my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) got to be HP for a match. She went 6-6, calmly walked off the field and said, "I don't see why that was so hard for you to do in Atlanta."

What's my point? I don't know. But don't underestimate natural ability...especially in younger members. It should be the coach's job to hold the strategy in his mind. The driver should be focused on executing the strategy. Think of it like an NFL offense. The coach is the O-Coordinator. The driver is the QB. The driver needs to be focused on the current task at hand, the current play. The coach can focus on big picture things, like time left and current match score (especially this year). The coach being able to communicate is just as big of a factor as the driver being able to communicate. The decision on who the coach is can have just as big an impact on match success and the decision on drivers.

So, I guess the next question is...how do teams choose their coach?

[Enigma's puzzle]

I was a coach for the last two years, and i came across the same kind of realization that you did, as HP. There were people that were coaches, that could recite the manual like a poem, but they were lacking the people skills to convey their great strategies to there alliance partners. I have since realized that knowing the rules verbatim is less important than being able to work with other teams, share strategies, and think on the fly.

What we have been looking for in a coach, is someone humble, smart to stratagize and "play well with others", while being able to tell their opinion in a strong confident manner, off the field. While on the field they can be the "GPS" to anticipate what will happen and convey directions to the drive team, essentially applying the given strategy to the situation. while being able to adjust the strategy on the fly.

In your football analogy, above, the HP would be lineman, given strategy at the beginning of the play and then being expected to execute it by himself. While the coach (as the football coach) gives the driver (quarterback) directions, and the driver is in charge making the decision how to do it.

[Brandon_L]

we just take the bot to the gym. Anyone who wants to drive comes up and we make teams of 2 (one for driving and one to control manipulators and stuff.) We then just pick the best....If we can't decide (we didn't last year) then we use both teams and swap them out every other match.

[JackN]

When I am looking for drivers, I look for kids that are good under pressure, mature, competitive and can work well with the other drive team members. If I have a kid who is a great driver but is constantly yelling at the other members of the drive team or is ignoring the field coach then I would not even consider them. It is great to have your driver and operator be friends that communicate well with each other. Look at the best sports teams, they all tend to have great chemistry and work together. Teams like the Dallas Cowboys had serious issues this season, because there was a lot of fighting amongst their team, while a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers have worked together more as a team and have made it to the Super Bowl. Competitiveness is also key to me. I hate losing more than anything in the world and I want my drivers to feel the same way. They should play every match like it is the finals. If they aren't focused on winning every time they are in a match, then I will find a replacement for them. Finally the drivers need to make a commitment to the team. They need to show a passion for the team, even if it is animation, programming, web design or chairmans. You need to care about the team, it can't just be something you just do, it needs to hold a significant purpose in your life. If you don't care about the team, I am not even going to consider you as a driver.