Should a programmer be a driver too?

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by keehun

I tend to disagree. I am the programming captain and in trial runs, the build team captain was better than me at just pure driving. He is a senior and has been driving a car for years and I'm only a sophomore and I don't even have a permit yet (this summer =P). However, I didn't lag behind much at all but he clearly was a better driver. However, we did more trial run as pairs. The electronics captain (another sophomore) paired with me to be on the try outs. The building captain paired up with another senior, someone who worked extensively on the robot and was a large part of the build team. The electronics captain and I knew each other since 7th grade and we work really well with each other where as our building captain lagged on this part.

We valued the ability to work well together over pure driving skills. After all, everyone is pretty much equal in regards to ability to drive, at least on our team.

We also capped the try outs at a local pre-ship event and Trent (Electronics captain) and I ended up doing best so there you go.

Ability to work together and COMMUNICATE over driving skills. At least in my experience and the experiences of Team 2502.

I agree that being able to communicate is a very valuable thing. But im not going to pick 2 students who communicate very well to be on the drive team if they don't have the skills im looking for. I look for skill and then communication. Communication can be worked on, so can driver skill, but i want my driver to be good at that first. I can work on the communication part, if it is lacking.