Driver Skill

[lark95]

One very important thing for drivers to be able to do is drive in any orientation relative to where they are standing. This needs to be done without even thinking about it in order to minimize the time it takes to do things.

[Lij2015]

1. You gotta let your driver pick their own driving method, if you're like me and were on programming that's easy to achieve. Its needs to suit what they want to do, and how they want to do it.

2. Speaking from experience, your driver HAS to be comfortable driving as fast as your robot can go both forwards and backwards. In most cases driving backwards is a bit weird for most people, but in 2014 at least when you're dodging people you couldn't expect to only be driving forward if you wanted to actually get around people.

3. You're drive train has to be agile and controllable, give a bad drive train to a new driver and its not going to end well.

[gigaboggie]

I am the drive coach for my team this year after being a driver for Team 3042 during aerial assist. As most people have mentioned previously, avoiding defense is a huge advantage. However, there is one set of skills that I haven't seen mentioned that I believe to be really important to look for and develop in drivers. This set of skills involves leadership, communication and critical thinking. It's good to be a good driver for your own team but in most cases your team will not succeed alone. In my personal opinion, the most important aspect of driving is the interaction with your alliance partners. Drivers need to develop a great sense of strategy because a good strategy can allow a mediocre robot to compete on a level with the elite robots. If I had to suggest one thing for any driver, it would be to understand strategy at a deeper level and communicate that between your alliance partners.

[Max Boord]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

"Drive it like you stole it"

No, seriously, if it breaks its pit crews problem. Also design teams problem for building a drivetrain/mechanism that breaks.

The one thing you shouldn't be while on the field is sheepish. If an opposing robot is in between point A and point B, don't be afraid to get rough. Within the boundaries and spirit of the rules, of course.

Could not agree more. be as aggressive as possible.

At the off season event (Panther Prowl) the #1 seeded alliance 180,1523,1065 had to beat the formidable cycler 1902. our defense bot was no match for the 20 fps of 1902 so we proceeded to slam intro them at our top speed of 25 fps. It made for a great show and a warm up for the finals. It also proved that mechanum drive can beat a wcd in a pushing match.

Be unpredictable: This is huge. Even of we had to go out of our way we would take a different feeder station so we could give a full speed slam into a top scoring robot. If you do not want to slam into robots directly try slamming into there objectives. We faced S*M*A*S*H in the finals and knew they had to be exactly lined up to climb. We also knew slamming into them meant there climber would break as well as destroying our electronics, so we slammed into there pyramid delaying them the few precious seconds they needed to get there 50 pts.

Here is our montage of what happened. if you look closely you can see the aggressive driving style coming into play.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jR1wdYMnD0

Overall, if your are on offence drive FAST and with authority. Don't let defense slow you down. Let them know that playing defense signs you up to be on the reviving end of over 350 foot pounds of force. Also, if you are stressed out slamming into something can help (try it. it rely works). Just remember to have fun while you do it and, just remember if it breaks there is an army of people ready to fix it.

[Keegbot]

Like everyone has said, drive fast and maneuver out of the way.
Don't waste time doing petty tasks. If your intake is having trouble picking up a ball in a corner (not really relevant to this years game) you should try and see if there is another ball that will be easier to pick up to save time.

If the robot is mecanum, one good practice maneuver for agility is circle strafing. In circle strafing, you strafe around an object. Although you may not use this exact move in comp, it helps with getting around other robots by strafing to the side. It also helps the driver develop more control over the robot.

[MathMaven]

Originally Posted by safiq10

basic, intermediate, and advance driver techniques

I'm not sure this is the effective way to think about driving: determining whether your drivers are "good" uses, I think, a holistic evaluation, as opposed to a test of specific skills.

That said, you can make many "ATs" out of effective use of code. If you program certain features to help your drive team deal with stressful or careful situations easily, then your drive team will love you. A simple Drive Straight button, or a forward/backward toggler, is very useful.