During competition, there are few things more frustrating to a coach than a timid driver. Often the drivers on my team are afraid to really show what they can do with the controls when on the competition field. I was wondering what some coaches do in the heat of the moment to encourage their drivers to let loose and not hold back?
Iâve found that many times the drivers know everything that can go wrong with the robot, and it preoccupies their mind. Remind them that your team can fix anything they can break and that they need to push the robot to do its best during a match the same way the team pushes themselves to be their best during build.
bumpers are there for a reason. donât hesitate to use them
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To be honest, yelling seems to be counter intuitive⌠Yes, I have yelled at drivers, but mostly due to the background noise. They get more withdrawn and timid because they are afraid to mess up.
Just let them remember that there are just very few chances like this. If your drivers are seniors, this will be their last chance to do something like this. Just remind them that there will never be something quite like a FIRST robotics competition. Also, Seniors tend to have the most experience, they know how things roll and they just want to get things done, not saying that underclassmen donât, but just a generalization.
Also, I find that the more aggressive drivers tend to do better. I have been known to be rather bold when it comes to my strategies regarding robotics. My mentality is: just go for it.
I was told one thing when I was learning to drive way back when.
âA robot can always be fixed - but a match can never be replayedâ.
It was our Drive Teamâs Motto in 2007, 2008 and 2009 - anyone who saw me drive in 2009 knows I took it to heart.
Since then, Iâve told every on-season driver the same thing and have yet to have a problem with a timid driver. To be honest, I only select drivers that have some degree of natural aggression when behind the sticks. Not enough to lose their cool, but enough to put the robot where it needs to be without fear of getting the bumpers dirty. If someone proves that theyâre not up to putting the robot where it needs to be, they will not make the cut.
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Iâm a four-year senior this year on our team. With our team, drivers have always historically been seniors, and, while itâs not a guarantee that this will always be the case, itâs very likely in my mind. With that said, our week one event will not be my first competition behind the controls. After the senior drivers graduate each season, our team selects a new drive-team for our off-season events.
Going into the season, now, Iâve driven at four competitions, and won two. Personally, I think that nerves are something that are difficult to overcome during the competition if one isnât prepared. A lot of it has to do with the studentâs composure in general. Thatâs not to say, though, that a student driver cannot overcome the nerves. The best thing to do is to get out on the practice field as much as possible. Believe you me, itâs a lot easier to be willing to fly around the field when youâre actually on the field. Our build facility is one without lots of space, and what space we do have is filled with some expensive equipment that doesnât belong to usâŚso when we practice in facility extra care has to be taken to make sure nothing gets broken. In that way, getting onto the field has me feeling a lot more âfree.â Maybe that sort of experience might help. If a student isnât comfortable, get him/her comfortable driving in adverse conditions, so that driving on the actual field feels more natural and even easier.
Truly it all comes down to the ability to handle pressure, to take criticism, and to respond to instruction while still being independent, making quick decisions, and being aggressive. The unfortunate truth is that not all students are capable of driving. The best way of figuring this out, I think, is asking the student for an honest assessment of his or her abilities. If the student feels too nervous, I tend to think he or she would be willing to come out and tell you that he or she isnât comfortable doing it.
Our drivers have a motto -âDrive it like you stole it!â. It makes for a long day fixing the robot after most matches but they seem to have a lot of fun!
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Get them on the field during practice day. My first ever match last year i was extremely nervous, as i never drove on the competitions field before. (also my controls were backwards -.- ). After my first match on the practice field i started to get use to driving under pressure. It became easy to communicate with my fellow driver and my mentor.
Drivers need to know the robot perfectly inside and out to know its potential. I am the designer of this years robot and the mechanical leader, so i know the robot more than anyone. I know what the limits of it are and what it is capable of. You dont wanna push your robot so far that your always working on it after every match, but you need to know how far you can push it. This year is gonna be awesome to drive! Canât wait!
Last year was my first year driving (gr 10) and i am the driver (with my fellow driver) until I graduate. We think this will benefit the team a lot because we will be use to driving out on the field. I think during my gr 12 year (2013 season) we will start training new drivers to get them use to driving tho.
Good luck 
They used to tell me that, then once they realized I did drive it like I stole it, they changed to âIf you lose the match and the robot doesnât come back broken, you didnât drive hard enough.â This year, people have started saying âDrive it like Joey.â
I do think me not knowing much about the mechanical portion of the robot allowed me to push it to the limit. I knew that if I did anything stupid we had a great group of people that would be able to fix it, although our breakaway robot had a tendency of breaking the field before it would break. That drive team worked pretty well, as I was the lead programmer, and the other driver was one of our head mechanical guys. If anything went wrong during the match we usually had a pretty good idea of what it was.
Thatâs it exactly.
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Drive through the ball, not to the ball.
The hardest thing Iâve had to communicate to drivers is how to take proper angles to catch another robot rather than chasing said robot. Itâd help if there wasnât a 100dB speaker right next to the field. Offseason events help alot with building confidence.
To quote my drive coach:
âDrive deliberately⌠I trust you know what to do anyway.â 
We will have a senior reprising his role as primary driver for the third and final time, and I will be serving as primary student coach/strategist for my third and final time. Our human player has played all four years, and our secondary is returning for his second year.
Weâre a tight group. Weâre never not at meetings. Our primary is a programmer who knows the limits of the controls, but not what a mechanical person believes to be the limit of the robot. He is the only driver I have seen bullying/pinning teams while on a mecanum drive. Our secondary is very involved with the manipulator, tested it for speed, distance, and accuracy, and knows its sweet spots.
Our primary has said I love the game and FIRST more than everyone on the team combined. Iâve played around with different math ideas, game breaking, ideal practices, and I go out to other teams to show them how awesome our robots are. Our other coach, who serves with me when I canât make it, has the same kind of passion and literally the same name) as me.
Our human player has the best hand-eye coordination on the team, probably outscoring our robot in 2009, only letting by 1 foul in 2010, and throwing tube onto the robot in 2011. No reason he canât chuck the ball in a hoop in the last 30 seconds, right?
A tight knit, seasoned group of individuals who understand the robot, the mission of FIRST, and the volatile seeding and eliminations rounds.
Have you tried offering them $5 for every time they bring the robot back broken?
In all honesty, we find constant encouragement helps a ton. After the match, donât talk to them about what they should have done - talk to them about what they did well. That will help to build their confidence, which will in turn make them more agressive. Plus, theyâll know what theyâre doing well, and theyâll try to do everything else better as a result.
Or, you could just go the route the father of our main driver suggested the other night⌠give her a shot before every match. I think he was joking. Or I should say hope 
I think the best fix for timid drivers is not at the event, but before. Its hard for rookie teams to do but driving practice with/against other robots is extremely helpful. If you have an experienced driver (or your backup) available let them play defense against your primary driver using a previous yearâs robot. Observing all game rules while playing stiff defense or helpful offense can help your driver learn about the game and not being scared of hurting your robot or someone elseâs (bumper zone!).
Quoted for truth.
Haha that is what I tell my drivers now! I was our driver in 2009 when we won the 10,000 Lakes Championship, if I hadnât been told that I think Team Titanium would have gotten a few more empty cells that year >.< I enjoyed driving with you!
Over forty years ago as a recent graduate engineer my first job had nothing to do with engineering but a lot to do with driving robots. I flew a jet interceptor and was taught a lot of things that translate into the making of a good drive team today. Such things as situational awareness, acm, startegy and tactics and there implementation. The most important thing that I learned then that I teach my students today is to âthinkâ not âreactâ. Thereâs nothing wrong with reaction and it will save your life in a an emergency. The problem with reaction is predictability. So what does this have to do with driving a robot? This past weekend at a scrimmage our robot was pushed by another robot during a match. So what did our driver do? He reacted and pushed back. If he would have thought and known where he was "situational awarenessâ he would have realized that he was only a few feet from the key and if he would have instead backed up he would have caused the other robot to commit a foul. Sometimes people see timid drivers as weak. I see them as smart and trainable.
two words âstudent robocoachâ who can relate to a timid student driver than another student that goes through the same stuff they go through. they understand each other better, and when student robocoachs talk to student drivers i believe it goes better
our team has done it for two years and planning on it this year if it makes a difference.
Through the years we even remember some robocoaches from other teams yelling a bit, just remember its for learning and fun