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Re: Mentors as Drive Coaches?
Definitely an intriguing question from the OP.
I would go for the midway point where your coach is picked to best fit the needs of your team.
For us, our drive team consisted of
Human Player: excels in athletics and mechanical
Driver: excels in mechanical and communication (judges, alliances).
Operator: excels in programming and design
For us, the best addition to our team would be someone who excelled in strategy. This way, he/she could coordinate with our alliance partners, and give the drive team high level instructions to maximize our [alliances'] score.
Our best pick was a college freshman, who had been a long standing member of our team as a designer, presenter, driver, coach (yup, we are short-staffed) in previous years. He had come back this year to help us with mechanical engineering stuffs, but since he was also well-versed in rules and strategy, we asked him if he would be our coach.
If there had been a better choice (student or mentor) at the end of the build season, we would have gone for him/her.
In the end, we had a great time, and I felt like our team had an outstanding performance. And I definitely didn't hear anyone complaining that they didn't get the FIRST experience they deserved. Why? Our team made the decision together, in the mind of what would best suit our team.
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