2009 Drivers

[swamp_child]

1649's drivers were amazing at florida, somehow they were able to ninja around the field and just appear out of nowhere and score a hopper full of balls on everyone. They were also a blast to work with and just in general cool people.

I think our driver sean is also pretty good

[Chris is me]

This is a lot trickier to say than "the best robot" because some good drivers had less than top-caliber robots to drive. I can really only go off of what I saw in Newton and 10,000 Lakes. A good driver and a bad driver decides matches, and good robots can fall to bad driving, so basically any team that did well probably had good drivers all around.

1625 had an amazing, smart drive team. As if their robot needed the help ! Just some of the mind games they played continue to impress me as I watch all of their replays.

2836's robot was decent, but their drivers really set it apart as far as Newton defense goes. It never let up when playing defense, and the drivers multiple times outpredicted the robot they were trying to harass and just stayed locked onto them. I can say similar things about team 1629 (though they had the benefit of scoring more).

2470 didn't do so well in Atlanta but be sure to check them out once the 10,000 Lakes videos make TBA. 1714 and 2826 wouldn't have won without them, and they did set up nice screens for the alliance. 2826 and us did countless sandwich dumps, and they're pretty smart too, except for that time they accidentally dumped on us :/

I'm really proud of our drive team too ^_^

[robodude03]

I have to put my vote in for Dustin and his drive team on 816. Driving with them on the Curie field was great and we could always rely on him to follow through with the strategy. I remember Brad saying that we needed you on our alliance for finals and most of our scouters were impressed with your driving ability. We were proud to display the "No Traction Control" sticker on our robot, thanks Dustin

Along with that is the excellent driving and execution by our alliance members 188 and 329. Our alliance huddle always ended yelling out "Execute!". We knew 188 could maneuver themselves into scoring opportunities when we needed them to or play hard defense against top teams such as 217.

[OZ_341]

I think that 816 and 217 had awesome drive teams in 2009.

But i do have to put a shout out to our 3 year driver, Nika. She started as a sophomore, winning her first regional in 2007. Now she is leaving high school with 3 regional championships to her credit. When things got tough she was always focused and unflappable. For three years she drove like Batman.

[Jared Russell]

Originally Posted by OZ_341

But i do have to put a shout out to our 3 year driver, Nika. She started as a sophomore, winning her first regional in 2007. Now she is leaving high school with 3 regional championships to her credit. When things got tough she was always focused and unflappable. For three years she drove like Batman.

I think Nika drove like...well...Miss Daisy (had she not been chauffeured by Morgan Freeman, that is)

Seriously! Nika's style was courteous, skittish, and civilized. Which fit our last 3 robots perfectly (in 2007 and 2008 we built agile omni-wheeled machines that could dance around anyone but lost to an office chair in pushing matches, and of course this year the name of the game was evasion). Put a harmonious robot/driver tandem like that together with another effective scorer (PA '07: 181, PA '08: 365, SD '09: 1332) and a bruising defender (PA '07 and '08: 84, SD '09: 2543) and you make quite a force!

[Jared Russell]

While we're at it, 816, 365, and 217 had far and away the best driving that I saw personally this season. All three knew how to use the trailer to help them maneuver, and really threw their weight around.

816 was able to contain some of the best scorers in Lunacy one on one. 365 had the ability to line up their target from across the arena which frequently led to a thunderous collision, a robot thrown up in the air, and a trailer full of balls. And with 217, you could just tell that they were one with their machine, pulling off ridiculous feats in every match (it takes practice and guts to human load a super cell with 10 seconds left, which 217 did often and usually made count).

[Meredith Novak]

Rookie Team Dewalt - 2775. They were getting ready to go out on the field at St. Louis for their very first practice match and driver Brandon was asking coach Greg, "Okay what do I need to do, what do you want us to do, do we have a strategy?" He was so excited and really serious. Greg was like, "Uh, just drive around." Brandon was deflated. It was very funny. They certainly did more than "just drive around."

[notsteve]

there were some people who take "drive it like ya stole it" literally. i didn't see alot of matches, but some teams stood out as like not really getting scored on. obviously like 217 was really good with that, and 3119 was a rookie i believe and they didn't have a scoring mechanism, but they seemed to avoid being dumped on.

crazy moment though, the 1188 driver avoided getting ANY balls in his trailer in an entire match against the 217-67 alliance at troy! i wasn't watching them till like 10 seconds left my buddy was like hey 1188 has NO balls in there trailer!

[Chris is me]

Oftentimes that's because the other drivers are easy targets. Then again, NO balls is pretty unusual, they must be good at avoiding HPs.

[Michael Corsetto]

67. Their record proves it. In a game where 50% of the top robots do the exact same thing, its takes more than just robot design to win it all. 67 obviously had something else, since any number of other robots could do just what they do, as fast or even faster. 67 dedication to strategy throughout the match is I believe why they have the most wins of any single FRC season, ever (district system may have helped a bit )

Seriously though, watch some of their matches on youtube. They always score 15+ balls, and typically deliver one or two empty cells on top of that. I can think of at least 20 robots capable of doing exactly what 67 did if they had HOT's drivers. This year's game made it painfully clear that driver's can make or break a season.

[AustinSchuh]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

Seriously though, watch some of their matches on youtube. They always score 15+ balls, and typically deliver one or two empty cells on top of that. I can think of at least 20 robots capable of doing exactly what 67 did if they had HOT's drivers. This year's game made it painfully clear that driver's can make or break a season.

Agreed! One thing I found while at Atlanta is that HOT doesn't look all that dominant on the webcast, but when you can watch them and them alone for the whole match, you finally realize how dominant they are. I rarely saw them get pinned, they never got stuck in the clusters, and when they wanted to dump, they just found someone and dumped without needing an extensive chase. From what I could tell, they even did this when someone was trying to defend against them. The webcast tends to just catch them dumping, which doesn't showcase the rest of what they do. I still don't know how they do it.

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by AustinSchuh

I still don't know how they do it.

Drivers, its all drivers!

Usually I am not a fan of people nominating their own team, so I will use objective data to back up my claim.

Our driver (Nick Orlando) this season, is one of the most talented student drivers I have seen in my 5 years in FIRST. Not sure it has been realized the success that he has accomplished in his short career as a FIRST driver.

As the Arm Operator in 2008 FIRST Season:
- Part of Great Lakes Championship Alliance (67, 326, 503)
- Part of Curie Division Championship Alliance (67, 16, 348)
- Part of Einstien Championship Finalists Alliance (67, 16, 348)

As Driver 2008 off-season
- Part of MARC Finalists Alliance (67, 910, 226)
- Part of IRI Championship Alliance (67, 330, 987, 68)
- Part of Kettering Kickoff Championship Alliance (67, 910, 1075, 2619)

As Driver 2009 FIRST Season
- Part of Cass Tech District Championship Alliance (67, 217, 3098)
- Part of Lansing District Championship Alliance (67, 68, 358)
- Part of Troy District Championship Alliance (217, 67, 3095, 3119)
- Part of MSC Championship Alliance (217, 67, 65)
- Part of Galileo Division Championship Alliance (111, 67, 971)
- Part of Einstien Championship Alliance (111, 67, 971)

In summary that is a total of 10 Golds and 2 Silvers in 13 events. 150+ wins, and over a 0.860 winning percentage.

Obviously winning is not the only judge of a driver, but just as in NASCAR its the only way to objectively judge driver success.

I think that the only other driver that has statistics comparable to this is Brandon, the driver for 1114. These two drivers set the current standard in FIRST for driver ability.

I realize that we give our drivers effective and reliable robots. But, there is a common thread through all that success and Nick is it. In my opinion these robots would not have been nearly as effective without him behind the controls.

In the end you can have a great design, pit crew, coach, etc...but the student drivers behind the controls are the ones that determine how the matches are won or lost.

The point of my post is to honor this incredible student, not to diminish the accomplishments of other teams/drivers. Hopefully, it is taken as that....

Being a senior this year, we will not have him next year and we will have to depend on another talented student to fill his shoes....good luck!

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Drivers, its all drivers!
[...]

I think that the only other driver that has statistics comparable to this is Brandon, the driver for 1114. These two drivers set the current standard in FIRST for driver ability.

[...]
Being a senior this year, we will not have him next year and we will have to depend on another talented student to fill his shoes....good luck!

Very true. You probably remember Shane, from 330. 9 wins, 4 finalists, 17 events, 4 years. Not having him behind the glass really hurt 330 this year, even with him training new drivers. (Pesky graduation!)

That's the thing about drivers. As soon as you find a good one, they go and graduate within a few years. So you are constantly looking, trying to find that one driver who can take you onwards and upwards. And then one who can beat that. And the best driver of the year might not be the best driver the next year.

I don't remember any outstanding drivers from this year myself, primarily because I was too busy watching the robots they controlled in action.

[notsteve]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Oftentimes that's because the other drivers are easy targets. Then again, NO balls is pretty unusual, they must be good at avoiding HPs.

thats true maybe someone was pinned and vurnerable, but also there partners were 1250 and 326, so it wasn't like there was any cupcake robots out there for 67 or 217 to key on.

and to the HOT drivers thing, ya i think they had the practice and percision like noone else. you never saw them out there pausing to line up balls or missing trailers.

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by notsteve

you never saw them out there pausing to line up balls or missing trailers.

If you watched closely or re-watch videos you will see there were times where we missed quite a few moon rocks.

Before each match, I would remind the drivers to concentrate, react to the open trailers quickly, BUT make sure the shot was lined up before shooting the balls.

This was a constant point of pre-match discussion and improvement on driving strategy...who says shoot the coach, driver, or does the shooter decide for himself?

Its was funny, at our first district event, I was yelling shoot, shoot, and he did, only we were not in proper position to score. Needless to say my drivers were not happy with me yelling shoot all match long.

By the end of the season the drivers just knew when to shoot and when not too without even communicating to each other.