Freshman on Drive team

[TDav540]

Originally Posted by The other Gabe

Oh god. I just realized that our entire drive team was seniors this year.

Same with us. However, in 2013, one of our drivers was a freshman.

[WeJohnFriedIt]

Our human player on Newton was a freshman.

[Andrew Y.]

2415 is a Freshman drive team. We are looking into 2 year dynasty set ups.

[Whippet]

No freshmen this year at Hub City due to travel conflicts, but I did get to be my former team's human player in 2011 as a 7th grade student.

[Dunngeon]

Originally Posted by The other Gabe

Oh god. I just realized that our entire drive team was seniors this year.

Better start training

[Clem1640]

1640's driver this year is a Freshman.

[kathrynmariel]

We ended up having all seniors on our drive team except for our coach for some of the matches he was a junior.

Our team has driver tryouts, a rules quiz and an interview to be able to tryout for drive team so anyone can tryout, it just happened to be all seniors.

[planetbrilliant]

We didn't make it to champs and our drive team changed a couple times due to complications but our drivers were either a junior and a senior or the same junior and a sophomore. our coach was either a mentor, the aforementioned senior, or maybe the aforementioned sophomore. our human player was either a senior or the aforementioned sophomore (we had some issues with availability and personal issues it was honestly a mess we're hoping to avoid next year)

[RonnieS]

Being a driver as a freshman was an accelerating experience. It was partly due to a very large amount of time and effort I had put into our 2012 robot compared to other upper class man. I then drove all 4 years of my FRC career and loved it. My drive was due a lot to being rewarded for my time and effort put in. This year, we had a freshman operator and human player, and they did just as well if not better than many others I have seen and worked with.

-Ronnie

[pribusin]

Originally Posted by The other Gabe

Oh god. I just realized that our entire drive team was seniors this year.

We were not at champs but that's what happened to us a year ago - we won't make that mistake again. This year we had a senior (HP), freshman (manipulator) and 8th grader (driver) this year. We will re-open drive-team tryouts every year.

[tpope]

3504's drive team has seven members if we include the non-field roles. We had three freshmen this year (human player, strategist and pit liaison). That said, the human player and strategist were both on the team last year as 8th grade interns.

[Tinmint1]

We have always had at least one freshman on our drive team. And this is the first year that we don't have an 8 th grader as well

[BrendanB]

I can only think of one time in 3467's 5 year history where both drivers were in the same grade which was 2013 (Juniors). Unless your team has a strong program for training new drivers which includes some off-season event(s) along with hours and hours of in shop drive practice with realistic circumstances keeping some experienced students down on the field can be a good thing.

Never let age get in the way of putting your best individual on the drive team and never let it be a permanent position from year to year. Nothing can hold back a team more than guaranteeing a position on the field just because of their position or age on the team.

[346CADmen]

Originally Posted by echin

3467's operator is an 8th grader.

Just curious how do you have an 8th grader on the team? Is he/she 14?

[pribusin]

Late birthdays (November/December) have some kids start school almost a year later than others. Hence some 8th graders are 14 in time for FRC cutoff.