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Unread 18-06-2013, 00:00
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rachelholladay rachelholladay is offline
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FRC #1912 (Team Combustion)
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Rookie Year: 2006
Location: Slidell, Louisiana, USA
Posts: 540
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Re: [FRC Blog] - Rookie Registration and On-Field Coaches

If a team wants to have an adult drive coach and feels that benefits the team the most, then they will. If a team wants to have an student drive coach and feels that benefits the team the most, then they will. I wouldn't try to tell them how to pick their drive team anymore than I would tell them how to build there robot.

Team 1912 just finished its 8th year and has always had student drive coaches. I have served as the drive coach for 2012 and 2013. Typically (with a few exceptions) our drive team has been composed of our build captains, with the controls captain as the drive coach, and the chassis captain, CAD captain and challenge captain as driver, operator and human player. Our captains are the students who have invested the most time, who understand the robot the best and who are the most dedicated. Our controls captain has been the drive captain for several reasons. We have always thought that someone one the drive team should know about the electronics and software. Also the control captain always must keep the big picture in mind, understanding all the components in order to integrate them in software. Its also coincided that many of our controls captains have been very, very dedicated.

Before our matches, typically our drive coach and strategist (both are students) talk to and generally touch base with our alliance partners to figure some general strategy. Pre-match we typically have all four members of the drive team involved in discussions to have everyone clued in. During a match, as drive coach I'm generally trying to do several things at once: communicate with the coaches of our alliance partners, help keep track of time, communicate with the human player and guide the general strategy of our robot. Our driver will admit, he has complete tunnel vision and looks at nothing but our robot. Therefore it is my responsibility to keep track of all six robots; for example this year telling him which path would be most efficient from feeder station to goal. There has only been one instance where I told our operator exactly what to do. (This year during our first couple of matches our operator had the habit of firing too rapidly and not letting the discs reload. To help him establish a rhythm I would say "Fire....Fire.....Fire.....Fire". After a few matches though, he got the hang of it and that was no longer necessary).

As drive coach, I also often had a rather odd role post-match. We have had the instance (which I'm sure almost everyone has had) where the drive team gets back the pit after a not-so-great match and everyone not on the drive team wants to say what they thought could have been done differently. I don't really blame them, but situations are seen differently from behind the glass then up in the stands. On the occasions where our mentors have wanted to admonish at the drive team, I have had them tell me (as drive coach) rather than then hassle the drivers directly. Then I process the information and try to give the advice to the drivers in a more calm and applied way. Call me maternal, but I like to protect my drive team from being yelled at.

As a student drive coach, there has been several occasions where I have felt disrespected or looked down upon my adult drive coaches. I do my best to keep a calm face and not get too frustrated. I don't like it and while I try not to keep any grudges, it does leave a temporarily sour taste in my mouth. I also remember being treated with nothing but respect by many fellow drive coaches, student or adults.

Personally I will always lean towards student drive coaches. I think its important for a student to assume that responsibility and that it helps students grow as leaders. Weird thing about the mentors of 1912: they refused to be the drive coach. They are of the firm opinion that a student should be drive coach and the majority of our lead technical mentors have been very passionate about that. Thinking back, our mentors almost never ever drive the robot, even at the build space or on demos. They simply see that as something we kids do.
__________________
Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science Class of 2017
2012 Dean's List Winner, 2011 NWCIT Award of Aspirations in Computing National Winner

2014 - : FIRST Team 3504 Girls of Steel (Mentor)
2014 Engineering Inspiration

2006 - 2013: FIRST Team 1912 Combustion (Webmaster / Controls Capt / Beta Test Lead / Drive Capt / JrFLL Coach)
2013 Woodie Flowers Finalist for Wendy Holladay. 2010 - 2013 Regional Chairman's Award at the Bayou Regional. 2011 - 2012 Best Website at the Bayou Regional. 2010 - 2013 Beta Test Team for Hardware and LabVIEW. 2012 JrFLL State Expo Coordinator.
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