Have You Trained Your Human Player Today?

[BradMello]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

From the looks of it you don't have to be athletic like you had to be last year but you need to be efficient and cool under pressure to do that job well.

For any coaches weary of choosing human players this year because you're worried they might lose their cool mid-game, a good indicator of someones ability to keep focused is their attitude while playing video games. I know people who get completely frustrated when they're behind, almost to a point when they're ready to start swinging; these people would definitely NOT be a good choice for a human player this year.

My team holds a video game night every once in while (when we're not super busy of course ), and I believe events like this can be used to asses peoples attitude under pressure. Especially to first year teams who haven't yet been behind the glass before, sometimes it does get extremely frustrating; plan for it.

"This year, a perfect human player score is 0"

[viking]

I agree with all the comments above.

Recap:
Build a trident and practice

Walk/run the ball to the middle player, DO NOT THROW

All human players should be calm and focused

Human players should manage the ball and the coach should manage the drivers

Practice, practice, practice

[O'Sancheski]

i agree to... everyone is focusing on the driving this year... but if you don't have the human player who knows the rules and has practiced for awhile... your just not going to cut it in the regional.

i know i have been practicing with our human player during spare time... just basically throwing the ball to him to place on the trident. But i strongly recommend taking one night and just practicing.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by viking

Walk/run the ball to the middle player, DO NOT THROW

Ding, ding,ding. This will cause teams to lose many matches this year.

So the question will be: When the human player drops the ball and it rolls outside of the alliance station do you chase it (and get a penalty) or hope that enough balls come through the goal to keep the DOGMA from penalizing you too much?

[waialua359]

The biggest disappointment I have about this year's game is the lack of opportunity for the HP to get involved directly in scoring this year (or for any year in fact).
We havent even bothered making a trident for this year and dont plan to.
We got enough issues to deal with.

[Chris is me]

Luckily, the HP's role this year isn't one that requires much thought if they have read the rules. Hopefully everyone on your team has.

You'll either be running the ball to the guy with the trident or you'll be using the trident to snag a ball on the return. Do it as soon as you get the ball. Don't game the timer.

Pretty simple if human players are members of a well prepared team.

[Kage]

This isnt just about the human players either.
It is up to the rest of the aliance to communicate, and score enough balls to rack up the score, but not too many that the human player is overwhelmed.

[viking]

We havent even bothered making a trident for this year and dont plan to.
We got enough issues to deal with.

I agree that we all have issues to deal with, and one of them is to build a trident and practice the ball exchange. Granted the Human Player is less of a factor this year, BUT don't let he/she lose the game for you if you didn't practice the move.

[Cynette]

Who has built a trident? The ones we built (following the drawings) are very snug over the ball. It almost seems like the best technique has been to put the ball on the ground and stab it with the trident. Has any one else found this to be the case?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Cynette

Who has built a trident? The ones we built (following the drawings) are very snug over the ball. It almost seems like the best technique has been to put the ball on the ground and stab it with the trident. Has any one else found this to be the case?

Our kids built one last weekend.

Ours is snug on the ball as well.
It's made from PVC pipe so it's kind of heavy. I hope the competition one isn't as heavy.

[BradMello]

Originally Posted by Cynette

Who has built a trident? The ones we built (following the drawings) are very snug over the ball. It almost seems like the best technique has been to put the ball on the ground and stab it with the trident. Has any one else found this to be the case?

We've built it......and broke it, twice. I'd advise against trying to catch the ball in mid air with the trident

[Jon Stratis]

We had our trident built the first week Having handled it myself a bit, it really isn't that difficult to get up to speed on it quickly.

[RoboMaster]

While I agree that throwing isn't a good idea, our team has found it quite easy to actually catch the balls with the trident when thrown. After you get the hang of it it's not that bad, especially if you train your human player. Of course people are appalled and faint on the spot at the thought of this.

I like the floor-stab idea though, and I think the safest bet will probably be to roll the ball to the human player, who stops it with his foot by stepping on it, and then stabs it with the trident. The bucket-brigade idea sounds great too for desperate times.

[ZeroGAdam]

Our team has had a couple people practice. We all agree that one of the simplest and easiest ways is to have one of the corner human players pick up the ball, and then the middle HP sticks out the trident to the corner HP, and then that corner HP sticks it in the trident. It seems to work quite efficiently.

[J93Wagner]

Has anyone else considered handling two balls at once?

I noticed there wasn't a rule against it.