We want to know if there is any driver must do’s, don’ts, or have’s to help us in the companions.
Practice.
To repeat from #OscarMNOVA12. PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
and KNOW the rules.
Set up your controller the way you want it.
If you have time for it (maybe during times you don’t have access to robot), write down a practice regiment for your driver to collect data to improve driving. For example, if you are a cap scoring robot, have the robot set up for skills and time your driver how long it takes to score six high caps and flip the other 2. Maybe record the runs and analyze what could be done better (like watching game tape). Make sure you document the process and results, they love reading about these things in the notebooks.
Have the driver go through “drills” similar to what sports players do. These drills can include simply going in a small path that makes it very important that the movement of the robot is smooth and fluid. Jerking the robot is bad for the battery, motors, and wastes time. It’s important that the driver is very smooth and very well acquainted with robot so he or she does not get nervous during a match.
Also, automate as many features as you can. Anything that needs to happen over and over should be automatically done by the robot. Still make sure that the driver is able to override these automatic tasks in case of something like a broken sensor, but having everything automatic makes it more efficient and less stressful for the driver.
Know the rules inside and out, and keep up to date with the Q&A.
Drive Drive Drive … if you find a mechanical hiccup solve it and drive some more. Oh and you know don’t do stuff that isn’t legal.
Of course what’s already been said is true, but if there is a significant pattern that is somewhat repetitive, sometimes some macro remote buttons could be helpful. For example, in ITZ we made a macro that our rollers always rolled out when the dr4b went down and the 4b was up. This made it so there was no need for 2 buttons and the rollers acted as soon as we needed them to. It makes it a lot easier to not have to worry about as much, but make sure that you are able to “give up” these functions to become partially autonomous (there should be no case where you would need the joined commands to be separated)
I’m probably not fit to give these tips (as @1008M can attest to), but these 4 techniques helped me go from prodigiously atrocious to a little below average So take them with a grain of salt, but enjoy.
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Drills. Identify your weak points and really practice those things over and over again. It’s critically important that your driving is second nature by the time you get to a competition, and an awkward maneuver that takes a lot of thought just wastes time.
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Scrimmage with your friends! The more you practice with other robots on the field, the less you’ll be thrown off by defense and chaos.
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Automate as much as possible. Right now, I have one button that shoots a ball (by making the flywheel, indexer, and conveyor all do the right things at the right time), and last year, I had a 1 button cone stack that kept track of the stack height. These things can be a little difficult to perfect, but they make a huge difference.
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Go into every match with a clear strategy. You should enter a competition knowing what your robot’s strong and weak points, and you should coordinate with your alliance ahead of time. The better you coordinate, even with things as trivial as who stays on which side or who focuses more of defense, the smoother you and your alliance will drive.
Good luck!
Always strategies with your alliance, if you don’t you might both go for the same cap or both try to park at the same time
Also, find out what type of driving your better at, tank or arcade?
always practice if you know you aren’t good at something and scrimmages work well for this. If you find that you aren’t too good at one aspect of the game, then work on that one part whenever you can.
make anything you can easier for yourself by designing the robot around it. You can use sensors or just good programming.
good luck!