Drive Team Configuration

FIRST General Forum
#41

816 has always followed the following configuration for as long as I’ve been involved and from what I’ve heard since our inception.

Driver - Responsible for the movement of the robot and getting the robot to where it needs to be. Usually we’ve tried to keep the driver’s controls to a minimum so there is less to worry about, but we have played on giving the driver some control over other machine functions (Ramps in 2007, Dumper override in 2009 which was never used.)

Operator - Responsible for robot manipulators. Pretty straight forward, anything that’s not in the drive-train is usually controlled my the operator.

Human Player - Varies with the game, and usually is the person most likely to change from year to year depending on the role. Usually this person is relatively athletic should the game call for it, otherwise this role is assigned to one of the more dedicated members that wasn’t able to cut it as Operator or Driver.

Coach - This is the role I’ve somehow fallen into since my graduation from HS, and I take responsibility for pre-match strategy, Analyzing Scouting Info (This varies from year to year, depending on what human resources are available) and watching the match while it is in progress. I try to keep my driveteam as well informed as possible both before and during the match so that they have less to worry about.

We also have a sort of an Assistant Coach on 816, Zach. He was our Coach in 2009 and a really close friend of mine so he usually travels with the team to help with strategy, scouting, keeping me sane, match analysis, comic relief and a handful of other things. If you don’t have a Zach on your team, I think you should find one.

I place a large emphasis on drive team cohesiveness (I guess that’s the appropriate term) and how well the personalities mesh with each other. I’ve worked with a lot of different drive team configurations in my 5-seasons with FIRST and I’ve found that this is often over looked. In many years we’d often pick the person that was best for a single job but often conflicting personalities would hinder the drive team from reaching it’s full potential. Just something to think about.

We also like to keep at least one or two back ups for each position, but we never cycle through drive teams. (anymore) Consistency is often one of the most important things when Alliance Selections come around, so you should keep this in mind. Nothing’s worse that picking a team and having them switch drivers or coaches during a match - it really messes up the flow of things.

And statements like this are why I love you, Chris.

I really might have to borrow this one.

#42

In 2010 for 1178 we had:
Driver: Drove the robot, could activate the kicker, or hold down a button to deactivate it

Weapons Operator: (Team Name, makes it sound really cool) Could kick, deactivate kicker, change kick setting and activate the winch on the robot.

Coach: Talked strategy with the other teams before the match, keep track of the score and penalties, help the human players communicate (if the person on the trident wasn’t paying attention) and sometimes would tell us what our alliance partners would do

Human player: Pulled the balls out of the corral and handed them to the person with the trident

We kept the same four people for the whole St. Louis Regional, and aside from robot problems, it worked fairly well. I cannot tell you about 2009 but in 2008 the driver was given more control of other functions as the Weapons Operator had a complex task.

#43

That’s how you try to get back on topic, with an asinine example? You seriously need to do a lot more listening to people who are trying to help and a lot less talking and bragging. But I doubt you’ll listen to me either. You seem to have a “Peanuts” filter in your brain; adults try to give you great advice, but all you hear is “Wah wah wah wah wah wah.”

#44

That’s funny…

#45

Reaaallly sorry for continuing the OT here and sorry for the long post. :rolleyes:

Hey David,

I believe I can safely say that I know where you’re coming from with your confidence in achieving a fully autonomous robot, and like some of the CD programmers here, I wish you the best of luck in achieving that.

I’ve read several of your posts in this previous year and although I haven’t seen any of your works personally, you’ve given me the impression of a very talented person, aside of being a talented programmer. I also assume that you are more experienced in this field, more than in mechanics.
As such a talented and experienced programmer, I’m quite sure you realize that by looking at previous years games and the diversity in the challenges and tasks in most of them, especially from every following year, you can see that it is very difficult to predetermine the challenges your TEAM’S robot will have to go up against. You may predict and prepare, and sometimes that works, but as for automation that is nearly impossible. There are a lot of FRC rules, field parameters and game element parameters and robot parameters and much more that you must take into consideration when forming up your TEAM’S strategy of the autonomous robot. But wait! Now you might know the rules, but you need to define GAME STRATEGY of your TEAM’S robot. Now that should put in some more considerations. Can you define all of the possibilities of different types of strategy-based tactics? Tons! Assuming you can define the solutions and implement them into the robot while in the competitions is very unlikely.

Speaking of parameters, somewhere deep in that huge paragraph i just worte (:stuck_out_tongue: ), Can you really trust your TEAM’S robot’s sensors and their accuracy? What if changes are made to the robot’s physical model?

Out of experience (as myself and as observing the work of another talented programmer I personally know), you may have the whole game plan for programming and operating the fully autonomous robot, but there’s a huge consideration you need to take in mind.

What if the rest of your TEAM cannot build the robot your TEAM’s strategy is based on? What if certain MECHANIC components or ideas just don’t work? A lot of time (and that is part of merely 6 WEEKS), and that also means sensor and manipulator calibration time, testing time and correction time (which includes going over the last two again), will be lost if that happens, and, sadly, as the young engineers and fragile humans we are, it happens to us a lot; And as a programmer, it’s a real shame to think that you might have had the “ultimate code to rule them all!”…when even in practice you couldn’t bring it out in the final product, the TEAM’s robot.
I have already experienced in the past 4 years the disappointment when you realize you’ve written a great code for your robot’s mechanical component, but it isn’t built until the very last days, and sometimes is just scratched off the final product, and all that code has gone for the season.

Your autonomous robot relies HEAVILY on the REST OF YOUR TEAM to build the other parts of your robot successfully, that is the electrical and mechanical parts. If they can’t achieve even the minimum required out of an FRC robot, your code is just virtual for the season, which is the most important period - not the off-season.
Virtual is beautiful and awesome, but reality is much more awesome, more practical and more accepted within the ranks of engineers and scientists in the field future science and engineering.

That was more of a personal statement for you David, and now to the point:

Unless you have 100%, or even 95% assurance you can achieve your goal with all it’s prior requirements to achieve it, then go for it. But if you cannot assure it, it’s best to lower your goals until you reach that 95-100% area of insurance of success.
Like others said, helping out your drivers, who will need to manually drive the robot in case of a “fully-autonomous emergency”, by giving them easier and smoother controls, faster response, simpler manual control methods and more, which are much more achievable and mostly likely to guarantee your TEAM success when driving the robot. Like I’ve said, you’re probably a very talented programmer and can probably think of very creative and useful ways to help out your TEAM in driving the robot, and hey!, maybe even when building it, say for mechanical tests!

…Though on the other hand you do have 8 programmers on your team, which is already too much… :S

Non-the-less, best of luck to you and your team in this year’s season, and I hope to hear great stories from your side. :slight_smile:

#46

With regard to davidthefat’s controversial statements, please, let’s all keep things graciously professional. Whether you agree with someone or not, gracious professionalism is even more important than competition, engineering, science, or technology, for none of the latter will succeed (or possibly even matter) in the absence of the former. Please avoid using derogatory adjectives about people, and stay in rational (if energetic) debate mode. And when you’ve made your point(s), assume you were heard, and let it go.

Learning how (and when) to sway someone’s opinion (or be swayed) without alienation or offense is the most important skill you can learn in FIRST.

#47

Back to on topic:

One thing to consider is that it generally takes a lot of practice or talent to be good at controlling a robot. Think about it from a video game perspective:

Video game skill tends to follow an “S” curve relative to time put in.
Generally the first few times you try something, you are trying to understand the controls, what does what, and how the system will react to inputs. That is one of the reasons some games have skill training sessions at the begininning of them typically 10-15 minutes to complete. The games tend to ramp up slowly. Then between 1-10 hrs, there is a rapid growth of scales until the user becomes quite proficient. After 10+ hours, you tend to level off, but many will still continue to improve. The same is true of other games and other skills. Mastery level though of a skill tends to be on the order of 1,000-10,000 hours of dedicated practice.

I gave up playing first person shooter games with most of my friends as they were in the 100-1000 hour camp when I was in teh 1-10 minute camp.

The bad news is, you will not likely get there in FIRST Robotics. Even the Michigan teams that do 2 districts, the MSC, and the Championship will at most see 44 qualifying matches and 42 elim matches (this would be 3 matching every round all the way through einstein finals). This is 86 matches or about 172 minutes of controlling your robot. Thus a little under 3 total hours of tele-op mode.

Because of this keeping a consistent driver, operator, human player is often key to having a strong competitive team.
Off-loading the required skills the driver/operator need is also very important.**
Whatever practice you can give your drive team is essential. If you do not have time or resources for a second bot, “finish” as early as possible. 2 hours of *** dedicated practice ***the day before ship day is more driving than many teams will see all season.

*A not so quick word on dedicated practice. Dedicated practice is not messing around with the robot for a couple of hours. We have only had a practice bot a couple of times, but they were wonderful things to have. Messing around is fine for the driver for 1 -2 batteries as they are trying to figure out the controls. After that, you should change over to drills. Practice key strategies and techniques.

In 2007, our drive team practiced a hang 9 in 2 drill. The team would hang 9 tubes on 3 rows of 3 in 2 minutes. Initially it took much longer that the 2 minutes (they could hang 4-5 in 2 minutes initially), but eventually they got to where they could hang all 9 tubes in 2 minutes. During the matches, they typically would only hang between 4-6 because of defense, and deploying ramps, but they had the ability to hang 9 and their timing was really commendable.

In 2010, we had a practice bot as well and we spent a Saturday cleaning the home zone. The assumptions was that there were 6 balls in the home zone after autonomous, and our bot was in the mid zone. They had to cross the bump and clean up all 6 balls plus hang in 2 minutes. The first couple of times, it took over 3 minutes, but eventually they got it down to 1:20 that morning. Again with defense, the results varried, but the practice clearly improved the level of performance that the drive team had.

In 2009, we kept very accurate data on human players and could tell when teams switched human players. This became a major factor in their ranking on our pick-list.

The dedicated practice principles are for any skilled base initiatives: sports, making things, brainstorming ideas, singing, writing, or racing a car.

**Some more not so quick words on the secondary topic. Jim Z. taught me the first year I helped there team that due to the lack of practice, off-loading skills & talent based needs from the drive-team is imperitive. This would include using a gyro to help the driver drive straight at high speeds. Automatic shifting to off-load needs of the driver. Using “State” control for complicated things like multi-jointed arms that have to score at different levels. Target tracking to assist the operator scoring balls. All of this is fine and dandy, but is only possible with a good mechanical foundation.

As Jim says, great controls can make a good mechanical bot great, but a bad mechanical bot will be bad no matter how good the software is.

Last year, in auto-mode, you had the opportunity to score at least 3 balls in autonomous. The national average per team score per match was 1 pt. 1 pt!!! You could be 3x better than the national average if your team just consistently scored their 3 in auto-mode! If you were a little more daring, there was time and opportunity to score as many as 5-balls in automode. If you could score all 5 of those, you would have been one of the top 25 or so in the nation within the first 15 seconds. Think about that!

I bring this up because I know that many good teams tried to do this. I know we did. A few teams were even successful at kicking 5 into the home zone a few times. For the most part though, this was extremely limited due to 2 major factors. 1. repeatability (field, mechanical design, ball inflation, ball placement, robot starting position…) 2. Partners (not all partners will let you kick “their” 2 balls. Some won’t even get out of the way of your 3!).

#48

To answer the original question: the make up of our drive team is highly dependent on the nature of the game and of the robot we build.

Some games lend themselves towards logical divisions of “driving” and “operating” tasks. For example, in 2006, our machine had a multi-modal 2-speed drive train for one driver, and a turreted, multi-range shooter for the other.

But in 2010, our machine was much more integrated - the main driver both controlled the drive as well as the kicking (in a quick grab-aim-shoot scenario, we would rather only one person needs to do everything to cut down on latency and be able to snap off the shot when the bot was aligned). The operator only regulated the spin of the ball magnet and was responsible for the since-abandoned hanger. Because of this, our operator acted much like a coach for our driver, pointing out balls (it helps that he was absurdly tall) and providing situational awareness for the driver. This freed up the coach (me) to look at bigger picture things like the overall state of the field, and to communicate with our partners.

The last tidbit also extends to our use of the human player: some years (2009), the human player clearly needs to be quite athletic. But in other years (2010), the task is much more basic, so we put our sharpest student on the job in order to provide still more observation and coaching to our alliance.

Lastly, when it comes to the coach, we have used both students and adults. In 2009 and 2010, it was almost always me (an adult), simply because we have found that sometimes alliance partners don’t tend to listen as well to students, and those games were the type where one bad partner can destroy a match. But in 2008, for example, there was really no need for an adult in the booth to coordinate strategy and keep partners on track.

#49

330’s driver from 2005-2008 (and last year’s drive coach) raced R/C cars before he got into robotics. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two drivers out there flew model aircraft. Practice with the robot is better, but in a pinch, you might be able to substitute some other “small” moving object.

#50

IKE,

These are two awesome ways to no only train your drivers but also map out the game as well. We have never had a good mock up field to practice with and were delayed by a few factors. (Snow :mad:) I would really love to try and make this a priority for this season because it gives initiative to the subteams to finish quick and efficiently.

#51

Brief aside for our viewers at home… Shane is arguably one of the best drivers in the history of FRC. Watching him drive was quite the experience…

-John

#52

It seems like this is a common trend in FRC. Most of the better drivers I’ve met have some experience with RC Cars, Planes, Racing Simulators, Carting, Dirt biking, Skating, Competitive driving etc.

(Our Practice Field is always open :wink: )

#53

While I don’t want to say Shaker’s driver is one of the best in FRC, I can definitely vouch for having RC helicopter drivers as FRC drivers. He was great after he had a regional of drive practice. Hopefully he gets more this year…

#54

Ahhh Dustin. I’ll hold you to that one. We will try and make an appearance more than once this year.

#55