Competition Roles

Competition has many different roles to ensure success and fun, every person on a team plays an important role.

Drive Team

The Drive Team consists of five team members, each serving distinct but equally important roles for competition play.

Coach

The Drive Coach is in charge of coordinating and communicating with the Driver and Operator during match play. This typically includes but is not limited to the following:

Keeping track of the match score.
Ensuring RP is earned in qualification matches.
Understanding the game rules, making sure they are followed.
Communicating strategy changes in the event of an unplanned problem.

Most of the time, this is also the person who will strategize with alliance members before a match. However, some teams prefer a dedicated "strategist," who strategizes for the coach and informs the Drive Team before each match. This allows the coach to focus on strategy execution rather than formulation, but most of the time I recommend that the coach is also the strategist.

Note: The Drive Coach is the only role on Drive Team that may be filled by a Mentor. Some teams prefer this, but if possible, I recommend that a strong and dedicated student fill this role, as it is a great learning experience, and leaves more fun for the students to do what they love.

Driver

The Driver controls robot drivetrain movement during a match. Being a successful driver requires the following:

Strong understanding of game rules, what is legal, and how to play in all aspects.
A commitment to the team, showing up to meetings and having a strong understanding of the robot.
Lots of drive practice time. This is extremely important, a good driver playing defense can often have a bigger impact on a match than an inexperienced driver with a robot that can score. (incredible example here, watch 1678)
A good listener. They must be able to understand the drive coach and follow their instructions, along with having diligent communication if there are strategy concerns.
A strong connection with the Operator, coordination is key to strong match play, and being on the same page is extraordinarily important. When I was the operator on 1778, the driver and I rarely ever spoke to each other during a match, as we understood each other and had the same goals.

Note: If your robot requires manual scoring, I recommend putting the "score" button on the operator controller. This prevents accidental releases if there is any miscommunication with the operator, and makes controlling the robot more proactive than reactive.

Note: Some teams prefer to merge the Operator role into the Driver role, meaning only one person controls the robot in a match. But there are a few tradeoffs to consider in making this decision.

Pros	Cons
Reduces required communication.	More controls to think about.
Allows you to have 2 human players or 2 coaches. Lots of top teams do one of these depending on their needs, both give more control over matches. Typically, teams choose an extra human player, but an extra coach is nice for playoffs as a "general" match overseer for all alliance members.	Complicated robots are a lot harder to control.
Only one person needs training, easier to build a schedule around it.	Requires lots of robot automation to be efficient.

Operator

The operator is responsible for controlling robot subsystems, and coordinates with the driver and coach to accomplish strategy goals.

The operator should ideally have the following qualities:

A strong understanding of the game and what is legal.
Commitment to the team, attends drive practice and has a very good understanding of the robot.
Good at listening and communicating; oftentimes the operator is the first to know of a robot issue, as they control subsystems.
A strong connection with the driver for coordination purposes.
Strong memory, knows controls with no delay and knows how to fix potential issues.

I also recommend that the operator is a core robot programmer, with a very strong understanding of how it operates. If there's an issue, this will help mitigate it quickly. No matter what, though, there should be at least one programmer who understands robot functionality on drive team (specifically Coach/Driver/Operator).

Human Player

This role varies by game, but typically the human player feeds game pieces to the robots and may be able to score some manually. Check out previous games to understand, but the main qualities that a good human players need are as follows:

A committed member of the team.
Shows up to drive practice and dedicates time to understanding how game pieces work and interact with the robot.
Good at communicating.

This role is variable and doesn't require as much robot knowledge as other roles. I think this is one of the better roles for learning how to be on drive team, and is a good way to include dedicated members.

Technician

Technicians are responsible for knowing the status of the robot, transporting it, and ensuring it is ready for match play. The technician does not participate in match play, but can be vital to competition success. Ideally, the Technician has the following qualities:

Strong understanding of the robot in all physical aspects, software knowledge not required as long as another drive team member has experience.
Organized, can keep track of things, clean the robot, make sure it is in top condition and diagnose issues if they arise.
Commited to the team and the robot.

Pit Crew

The Pit Crew is responsible for maintaining the pit during competition and working on the robot between matches.

Pit Crew (and all members of the team in the pits) must know how to talk to Judges about the team. I will not go in-depth about how to speak with judges here, but you can find resources online. (such as this)

Robot Managers

Robot Managers are in charge of general robot maintenance and work with the technician to make sure it is ready for the match. These members need a very strong understanding of at least one part of the robot's functionality.

Typically, only one or two Robot Managers should be in the pit at a time to prevent overcrowding.

Battery Manager

The Battery Manager must know how to care for batteries and prepare them for match play. They must also know what batteries are the strongest, and keep track of their charge throughout competition.

This role is extremely important if your robot is prone to browning out.