Drive Practice

By Karina, Charlotte, and Abhi

Task: Become experts at driving the robot and scoring glyphs

Iron Reign’s robot drivers Abhi, Charlotte, and I, have been working hard to decrease our team’s glyph-scoring time. The past few meets, we have spent many hours practicing maneuvering on the field and around blocks, something that is crucial if we want to go far this competition season. When we first started driving the robot, we took approximately 4 minutes to complete a single column of the cryptobox, but now we can fill one and a half columns in two minutes.

When we first started practicing, we had trouble aligning with the glyphs to grab them. The fact that were using our prototype arms was partially at fault for our inability to move fast and efficiently. We also had some human error to blame. Personally, it was difficult for me to not confuse my orientation with the robot's orientation. In addition, our drive team had yet to establish a communication system between the driver and the coach, so the driver had no guidance as to which glyphs seemed like the easiest to go for or whether or not the robot was in position to grab a glyph. Below is a video that shows our shaky beginning:

Our driving has improved significantly. We have done mock teleop runs, timed ourselves on how long we take to complete different tasks, and have repeatedly tried stacking blocks and parking on the balancing stone. When our robot doesn't break, we can fill up to two columns of the cryptobox!

Reflections

Overall, we feel that we can further improve our driving skills with more drive practice. Driving the robot really does require being familiar with your robot and its quirks, as well as the controls to move the robot. Abhi, Charlotte, and I know we are still far from being driving experts, but we are putting forth our time and effort so that we can give it our best at tournaments.