How does your team do Driver/Operator tryouts?

FIRST General Forum
,
1

Our team plans to do some basic driver tryouts this Saturday in preparation for our Week 0 competition.

We plan to have team members drive our basic swerve bot around some cones at different speeds (none greater than 40%) and drive through using field-positioned and non-field-positioning driving.

How does your team do driver/ operator tryouts? And if you don’t do tryouts how do you decide who takes the human player roles?

2

For tryouts, I’d think that you want to:

  • Not limit the robot speed. Let it go as fast as it will go. Let the driver choose when to max it out and when to go slower.
  • Evaluate drive skill with the actual competition tasks to the greatest extent possible. Driving around cones does not evaluate ability to make the robot do the necessary in-game tasks (especially for the operator)
  • Let the driver candidates choose between field-centric and robot-centric drive modes as they prefer so long as both options are available to drivers in the game.
  • As much as possible, challenge drivers with defense. If you have another robot, even if just a drive base, let someone else drive it and harass the driver candidates trying to accomplish their tasks.

I recommend that results of driving tryouts be only part of drive team selection. Evaluation of a candidate’s temperament, stress tolerance, and ability to communicate/relate to people they do not know are also important. Factors like seniority on the team and cumulative effort expended on behalf of the team are also things that could be considered.

Human player selection is pretty much the same, except that the tryout is with the actual tasks the human player needs to perform. For this season, I would think that demonstrated ability to Spotlight should rank very high in selection. In seasons with less skill-based human player tasks, the non-tryout factors would have greater weight.

2 Likes
3

Another popular system:

Determine the drivers and stick with them for all 4 years. Use offseason events to train new drivers.

Low budget approach our team did:

“Reward” the kid who spent the most time on the robot which often directly correlated to their knowledge of the robot.

Personality Traits:

While the post is asking for tryouts, it needs to be kept in mind that a drive team can make or break your team’s success.

The drive team needs to be able to keep themselves under control during high-stress moments. Being able to communicate and work together is what this is all about. These students will be the face of your team at competition - they will be interacting with other drive teams and likely also scouts. If they are not able to represent your team, you should probably reconsider before something bad happens.

2 Likes
4

I have no new advice on the driver tryouts but future recommendations. I would say in the future do tryout before build season with the last years robot/game. Do skills test with the game like you were driving the robot for that game. The main reason for doing this is so the programmers can ask you what you preferer as driver for buttons/robot preferences. Also this gives the driver time to drive the robot to get comfortable with the robot as it progresses through the build season. I hope this could help in future years.

1 Like
5

Normally this would be our standard procedure but last year’s robot was not in a state to do anything beyond basic driving at the end of the last season. We ended up taking it apart pretty early in the fall to recover the parts for working on some preseason stuff.

We also had to take apart last year’s field props when we had to move over the summer. Our new space is about 2/3 the size of our old space so some stuff just had to go. We do have cones and carpet to do shuttle runs and obstacle courses though. And plenty of previous years game pieces from 2013 through present

6

We have a full KitBot in addition to the main swerve robot. However until they finish the main bots bumpers we have held off on this. KitBot also needs some corner bumpers at a minimum but I definitely second this. Practicing alone is better than nothing, but it’s not like it will be at comp and you should practice like you play

7

Something I haven’t seen anyone mention is cooperation. Not just in general but actually driving the robot. Even if you have the best driver and the best operator and the best drive coach in the world, it won’t mean much if they can’t work together. Rather than choosing your driver and operator separately, choose them as a pair of students who work together best as possible.

1 Like
8

This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.