Driver Selection

1
Driver Selection

• Brad MillerAssociate Director, WPI Robotics
  Resource Center

2
Travel Team

• Whos on the Travel Team
• Two sets of drivers, operators, human players,
  and coach
• Software experts
• Electronics experts
• Mechanical experts
• Pit boss
• Everyone necessary to operate and maintain the
  robot

3
Qualities of the Team

• Should be very knowledgeable about
• The robot design and operation
• The strategy and tactics
• Even the drivers should have an understanding of
  the technology
• When a system breaks during a match they
  understand whats going on
• Judges are always coming over and interviewing
  teams

4
Selection Process

• Selection based on
• Participation
• Technical knowledge
• Game rules and tactical understanding
• For drivers, operators, human players
• Their ability to do their task
• Evaluated by advisors (mentors)

5
Participation

• Team meeting attendance
• Robot Demonstrations
• Support hours
• Operations hours
• Not meeting the basic requirements is
  automatically disqualifying

6
Technical Knowledge

• Technical interview for all members
• Autonomous strategies
• Sensors
• Mechanical design
• Wiring
• We assign a score to each team member

7
Game Rules Test

• Written test on the rules of the game
• Game play
• Penalties
• Strategies
• Must get 100 but test can be retaken until
  passed
• Designed to make sure that everyone completely
  understands the game
• Not passing is disqualifying

8
Driver Selection

• Need a way to evaluate the drivers, operators and
  human players ability to do their job
• Important to be completely objective
• Our method for all candidates
• Drivers use a past years robot to navigate a
  course requiring similar skills as the current
  game
• Evaluation is blind judges dont see whos
  driving and score by number
• Human player candidates demonstrate current years
  game skills

9
Rollup All Results

• Rank and resolve all drivers scores before
  getting names
• Put together the following results
• Drivers test rankings and scores 40
• Technical test rankings and scores 20
• Commitment (hours) 15
• Subjective score from mentors team values
• Only subjective part of the evaluation 15
• We select the primary drive team, additional
  students, and mentors this way