Hi! Next week my team is going to do some drive team tryouts, and we already have some ideas to what we have done previous years. What are you guys doing for yours, if you are having tryouts?
We first do a thorough rules test of the candidates. Then the coach and the leadership team have individual interviews with each candidate. Then lastly we have a drivers test. After all that we then select the drives team.
Too tired to post a long reply right now, and I’m sure someone else knowledged will comment. (Nick Lawrence perhaps)
Three basic things:
Give everyone a rules test
Have everyone write down what aspects of the drive team they want to be on, and let them choose more than one.
Test every single drive combination possible. You may be surprised at which combo’s work and which ones don’t.
-Duke
We have a small team, so the most extremely dedicated get bumped to the top of the list if they so choose.
This is one of the most critical decisions a team must make every year. Great care is a must when selecting your drivers.
Our system of selection is similar to what some others have already posted.
- A test of the game rules only. Not so concerened with the other sections we just want to know if the driver knows that driving into that space or impeding someone by doing x is illegal or legal.
- Interview process (this is very important). This needs to be real too, none of those worthless hypotheticals like what makes you a good candidate. Tough questions, thought provoking questions are best here and they dont even need to relate to robotics. The aim here is to see if the candidate is easily rattled. You want to see how they deal with questions they dont have the answer to. Do they lie to you and try to skate around it or do they look you in the eyes and tell you they dont know but they will find the answer. Integrity is important in a good driver/operator.
- Driving test (equally important). Think of useful scenarios for this. Make them operate in a similar space of that of the field. No sense in making them circle cones from 200 feet away. We also add backround noise when they are testing. Its not quite on the competition field so make them test in a similar environment
We use to have a drive team tryout. Last year though, me and another id were chosen by our mentor so we could be the drivers until we graduate (gr 11 right now). We were both chosen because of how well we communicated during the build season, and that we worked great together. This reflected highly on the field. We looked amazing driving the robot together and knew exactly what the other person was going to do next. Look for this while deciding on another drive team.
just so everyone knows if you look at my number of posts backwords it shows my team number!!! HOW COOL!
In the past we’ve had drivers tests but this year I’m trying to move away from that.
On most teams, the student leadership is evident. Weather you have a core group of 3 or 4 who make the most decisions,they are the most dedicated or some combination of those, if you asked most students on your team who the core student leadership is, they could easily refer to these individuals.
Therefore, it becomes clear that those individuals are in most cases going to be your drive team.
This method may not work for all teams, and I’m not saying the above methods are poor ways of selecting a drive team because they aren’t. However if you do have a good core group of 3 or 4 students who are student leaders on the team, without having to test them you know they know the rules the best, they’ll know the robot the best and are most likely good communicators on the basis that they are student leaders on your team.
If you have team members who want to be on the drive team but they are perhaps not the most dedicated or the best communicators then just convey to that student that if they want to have a shot at drive team next year then they should work on those traits that will set them apart from the rest of the team.
Again, your mileage may vary.
Interesting that you do it this way: On the EWCP cast last night, the subject was brought up of ‘coach driven’ drive teams and ‘driver driven’ drive teams. I would like to see someone go around at competition (maybe I’ll do it at FLR) and ask each team what their style is, then compare it to their final rankings (rankings, OPR, CCWM, etc…)
Each student on our team had to raise around $1,100 before kickoff and whichever students raised that much money were eligible. Only 4 people raised that much money so our drive team has pretty much chosen itself.
Well that’s one way to get things done, right? Man. They really must have been motivated, I know I take my spot on the drive team for granted, and now here I am sitting trying to make up a way to pick the next driver team. This thread has greatly helped me in go about solving that issue! 
It works for us.
In terms of coach driven or driver driven drive team, I feel like ours is driven by what the students want to do, and the coach is there to guide them. It’s a good balance for us.