Our drive team last year was two builders (HP and gunner), a programmer (driver), and a programming mentor as drive coach.
This year it’s shaping up to be two programmers as driver/gunner, the same mentor, and a student from the build side (or maybe media? Who knows) as HP.
Our team has driver tryouts and usually the best candidate gets the position.
We have requirements though to tryout. You have to be able to attend all competitions (which means keeping your grades up) and you have to have been a contributing member of your subteam. No showing up just to drive. The other requirement is knowing how the robot works (this can be learned after you have been chosen as a member of the drive team). But if you need a quick fix before a match starts, someone on the drive team needs to know what to do. Our drive coach as always been an adult, at least for regular season events.
last year our drive team was:
Driver: Junior Designer
Co-Driver: Senior Electrical Lead
HP: Sophomore Strategy/Scouting Lead
Coach: Junior Programmer
Driver alt: Sophomore Programmer
Co-driver alt: Freshman Build Team
We base who drives primarily on a written rules test that is timed and observed. We want drive team that knows the rules not a drive team that needs to think about the rules. We also test drivers with the robot and hp with their tasks. The coach is more or less subjected to a psych evaluation to see how they will interact with other coach’s and how well they can orate commands and make snap decisions. The coach must also be able to complete a task without getting tunnel vision to the task.
Our drive team are typically the “die hard” students whom have the most hours in at the build site as well.
Evaluation and testing have given us good/unbiased results for picking a drive team over the past 5 years. Once together its important to practice, practice, practice. we also make the drive team sit/eat/ride together at team functions so that they get familiar with each other.
Our driving team consisted of the following last competition:
1st Driver: CAD/Mechanical
2nd Driver: Mechanical (myself)
Human Player: Team member
Coach: Mentor
As a rule of thumb, the 1st (main) driver is always the captain. The 2nd driver is someone who knows the robot inside and out, can instruct the driver through strategy, and acts as a second pair of eyes. The human player is typically a non-specialized team member that showed extraordinary worth that year. On our team, the coach does strategy, but on a more broad basis than the second driver.
I find it interesting that we all seem to be level on the idea of crashing robots out of durability…
Guess my mindset is a bit off, on the field I expect them to do their best to try their hardest to give it everything. Last year shoving was okay and I approved of it but I would absolutely chew out a driver when the driving was overly aggressive. So a random crash not okay no spite no hate… just competition.
That being said there are certain lines that I take as courtesy when competing. If a robot is dead on the field you don’t kick em while they are down…
Rivalries are what we have on field, refreshments and relaxation time is what we have off of it.
There’s a line between driving aggressively(I did this last year) and being unsportsmanlike or a douche bag
Minus the colorful language I agree but the point I should have emphasized more is that your robots durability is important but I would never want to incap a robot. Not all robots have the same tolerances…
It is my belief that the drive team should consist of the people who have earned it the most over the build season and over the years. These are the people who have logged the most hours in the shop and are on task and most productive. It is viewed as a privilege for our most dedicated members. Of course, their ability to drive the robot well is important too.
Edit: my point is that it does not matter where they come from
I’m the Captain of the "Robot"side of the team. The robot side consists of Design, drive train, fabrication, electrical, programming, and anything else that is directly part of the robot.
Last year we held driver try outs and we chose the following drive team to start.
Driver= Field build captain
Operator= Programming Captain
Commander= “Robot/Pit Captain” (me)
Human Player= Our crazy Ginger Field Build member
After the first two matches at our regional we made a change to the drive team after unsuccessful matches due to driver error. The new Drive team was as follows
Driver= “Robot/Pit Captain” (me)
Operator= Chasis/Drivetrain Captain
Commander= Design Captain
Human Player= Our crazy Ginger Field Build member
Due to graduations and additions to the team this year, my best guess for this years drive team will be as follows
Driver= “Robot/Pit Captain” (me)
Operator= Team Co-Captain
Commander= Programmer/rules expert
Human Player= Our crazy Ginger Field Build member
Our 2 drivers have been from Programming and Electronics for a while. Drive team coach is usually one of our Systems Engineers.
***I highly recommend watching the following videos at the time markers indicated:
http://youtu.be/ALASWt2uDqw?t=47m10s Driver Qualities
http://youtu.be/ALASWt2uDqw?t=54m31s Drive Coach Qualities
http://youtu.be/ALASWt2uDqw?t=58m24s Selecting a drive team
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As a rookie team we are being very diverse in our drive team!
Driver: Mechanical Student
Operator: Lead student programmer
HP: Business/outreach student
Coach: Me, mechanical/strategy mentor
Our alternates have not been officially determined yet. 
It’s best to have a diverse drive team incase something happens to the robot and it needs a quick fix before the match!
Also something that is often overlooked is. Make sure that there are 2 strong people on the drive team that are capable of lifting the robot onto the field!
Seconded. I agree with everything Karthik says about drivers, coaches, and selecting a drive team. It all rings true with my years of FRC experience both as a student and as a coach.
I would like to emphasize the ‘chemistry’ bit that Karthik touched upon briefly. Drive team chemistry is VERY important, without it the drive team is not cohesive and thus much less effective. When I was a student I was appointed ‘gunner’ while my ex-girlfriend was appointed ‘driver.’ It didn’t go well, we were not an effective team.
When I was a student I was appointed ‘gunner’ while my ex-girlfriend was appointed ‘driver.’ It didn’t go well, we were not an effective team.
Maybe this is why it’s bad to have relationships with coworkers? 
Hehe, one must at least be cautious.
One the team I am a member of, 157, we actually have drive-team tryouts.
Once the robot is completed we have students who want to be a driver, operator or human player practice. We set up distractions and other robots and have them practice. The best driver is usually selected first, and then whoever is the best operator, that they work best with is the other half.
You should make sure they work together well, and that they will listen to the drive coach.
Last year, we had:
Driver: Build Student
Operator: CAD Student
Human Player: Build Student
The students tried out, the drive coach chose his best operator, and she told him who she worked best with, and they worked together to practice.
I agree with this, as long as the freshman show up to the required amount of meeting, he would get the job. I was a victim of a similar situation my junior year. I was driver sophomore year(first year on the team) and then I got to cocky as a junior and I ended up not being as commited as I should have been, and ended up being a scouting lead and not even being on drive team. Even though I may have been more qualified for the job. Really sucked to watch the team not make it to eliminations even though we had a great robot. I learned my lesson and last year I went to every meeting and ensured I was committed beyond just being driver and I retained the driving job and we had an amazing season aswell. plus got the deans list selction for the team, wich the mentors said was based solely on this years commitments.
Last year
Driver me- (mechanical)
Operater- (mechanical)
Coach- (mechanical/ design)
human player- (mechanical)
all 3 years I have been on the team a mechanical student has been driver, operater, and human player and for the most part coach except for when a mentor was one year.
Our former drive teams have been a part of all the different aspects of robotics. The last couple of years they have been a part of mechanical and programming. Each member on our team that wants to be a part of the drive team has to pass the drive test and be a significant part of the build of the robot- that way they know the robot functions and its limitations. The theory of build team unable to be drivers would not occur as long as they understand how to control the robot properly. Overall, our drive team needs to be able to work together and communicate well.
Our drive team consists of:
Driver: Programming and Electrical lead (me)
Operator: Mechanical lead
Human Player: Most athletic person that knows the game well and gets along with the drivers
Coach: Future driver
We usually stick someone at coach who knows the game well and needs the on-field experience for future years. This is my first year leading drive team, as I was the Operator in 2013 and 2014. Made it to the finals and lost by a tie in F-3 at my first competition as a driver (2014 offseason event).
We value our drivers. Over the past few years we’ve had some great ones, including one that got us to the #4 seed on Curie in 2011. I’m excited to drive at my first regional competition at Bayou in March.
A lot of teams designate their coach as the drive team “leader” so that drivers can focus on the second to second challenges of driving while the coach keeps an eye on the big picture. I’m curious as to reasons other teams would have the driver as the leader.