Hello Everyone! I was just wondering how your team chooses your drivers (drive test, written rule test, captains drive, etc) and whether you guys keep your returning drivers or you select new ones each year and finally, what does your drive team do? Ours seems to do this: Driver 1: Drives robot, Human Player: Human player stuff, Captain and Driver 2: watch match from control station.
Any feedback to help improve our team would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
We start with skills tests that test skills that can be used in pretty much any game and from that we pick four people as our drivers. One main team and one backup team. Then, there is a rules test. Our drivers have to know the rules intimately so we don’t get penalized. After that, we practice all season with old robots. Finally, a few weeks before competition we choose which drive team will be our main one but both are usually equally proficient as well as we choose our human player.
Here are some previous threads discussing the topic:
Driver Selection(2012)
WHEN to choose drive teams (2012)
Picking drive team? (2011)
Driver Selection: A Discussion (2011)
Choosing Drivers (2009)
Who should be driver? (2008)
Our team selects a new drive team every year through an evaluation by the coach (me). The evaluation contains an evaluation of listening skills, communication abilities, game terminology, rules and lastly is the ability to drive the robot.
Our Co-Driver is selected by myself, and the driver based upon their ability to communicate with the driver and skills with the tasks assigned to them (this year it was scoring and bridge manipulation.)
Our human player is evaluated by the driver, co-driver, and myself based upon their skills at the needed tasks.
We choose members based on how well they fit criteria (in order)
@Kristian Calhoun I think its a good idea to get new perspectives year after year
The Coach and the second Driver should not be there just to watch from behind the glass. If they are, you can send out less than a full drive team and still be effective.
The Coach should be directing the drivers to do stuff. “Go play defense! Shoot! Drop the bridge!” The Coach should also be the one coordinating strategy changes with partners, and keeping half an eye on the clock.
The second Driver, if not being used to drive part of the robot, should be either helping the Coach or (if allowed) helping the Human Player. However, for most robots, there is just too much complexity for one person to control the whole thing. That’s where the second Driver (or as most teams call them, the Operator) comes in. One Driver handles the base of the robot, along with such functions as are necessary to keep it driving around, say a bridge manipulator. The second Driver handles anything NOT the drive base of the robot–shooter, turret, collectors, possibly bridge manipulators and stingers, arms, elevators, the list goes on.
If picking the drive team, I would say to pick a TEAM, not individual drivers, human players, coaches. Give me the 1 best team, and take the 1 driver, 1 operator, 1 human player, and 1 coach, and I’d be willing to bet that you’d be losing a lot more matches. Why? If the 1 individuals can’t work together, they’re going to have a rough time. If my team works together well, whether or not they’re the best individually, the robot in motion is a thing of beauty. (If the best drive team happens to have the best individuals on it, so much the better!)
Last year we based our first driver off of who knew the robot the best and had had driven the most in past years because we had not had any practice time before bagging. For the second driver who controlled the shooter, turret we based it off skill because we were had an extra turret and shooter.
For the coach we chose a studen who knew the rules very well and is very good at staying calm and had watched all the previous regionals to get a feel for the game and strategy, and a leadership position on the team. The coach ended up being a freshman who took on leadership in the team very quickly and had a great connection with the drivers(upper classmen) he did a great job.
On our team every member is required to take a series of rules tests at the beginning of the season. We also have driver tryouts later on in the season(measuring skill while driving). The combination of those two is what determines who makes up our drive team.
The inbounder for our team was also one of our back up drivers. We have one two drivers. one manipulating(like last year-controlling the shooter) and the other driving the robot(and controlling the bridge manipulators)
I love these threads, it’s so interesting to see the different perspectives. On our team, we currently have a set coach. She is an alumna of our team and was on the drive team herself for three years. She focuses on strategy and all of the things that fall under that category, and is really good at it!
The team that works with her has to have several qualities, including:
Other things are important, but I’d say these are the primary things. Note: my opinions, not my whole teams opinions.
Aluminum Falcons have a couple great resources on drive team preparation and training, that may help.