[BoilerMentor]

I have been a drive team coach for many years both as a student and as an adult mentor. I have coached both a rookie team and veteran teams.

As drive coach, your role at a very minimum will be to keep your drivers focused at the task at hand. Ultimately you have to do what your drivers need you to do and as you've spent some time coaching you’ll get a feel for that. It isn't something we’ll be able to tell you. Some drivers need a lot of work; some only need a little bit. At competition, while in interactions with other teams, your role will be to act as an advocate for your team. The drive coach should be present in the discussions of strategy with other teams, ahead of a match, in the pits (Not in the cue). They should be familiar with both the teams on their own alliance and with the teams they will be competing against. Keep track of your drivers and make sure you know the match schedule well.

A timeline of events from before a match to after a match goes like this:
Teams start out by getting together in the pits to discuss strategy for the upcoming match. Teams work together to figure out what the best role will be for all robotics involved in the match and also discuss potential issues with the opposing alliance including working offense and potentially defense. The drive coach makes sure all the drivers are present with the robot and all are ready to cue at the appropriate time. While in the cue, go over the robot and make sure it is ready for the match, confirm strategy with the other alliance member and make sure the level of function of all the robots has not changed. The coach may also have to run and get anything that is missing. Here is where many teams differ and you need to plan ahead of time what you want to do. Sometimes the coach will help carry the robot onto the field. Sometimes the coach is simply in charge of moving things out of the way for the students. I, personally, allow the students to handle everything and do what they need me to do. When the match starts, make sure your drivers do not jump in during autonomous. They must stay behind the line. After the match, assist in taking everything off the field and debrief with the drive team. This is the time to talk about how a driver could have done things differently, give them praise for things in the match, or whatever you need to do. It may be wise to use the roses, thorns, and buds techniques. Tell the students things they did well (Roses), things they could improve on (thorns), and things that are starting to look good but could still use work(Buds). Be sure to keep the message positive overall.

This week, try to get a feel for what your drivers need. Run timed matches, don’t just drive. Set the clock and start. Even practice load on and load off so you have a feel for what the role of each drive team member is.
As far as being familiar with the rules, focus on the things that can earn you fouls. Communicate frequently with your human player because he/she is a very important part of the drive team and this year can rapidly incur a large amount of foul points easily.

As far as the strategies go, this is your most important role as a coach. As a drive coach you will be the advocate for your team in making sure your robot’s strengths are incorporated into your alliances strategies. Often coaches, especially adult coaches, can be pushy when it comes to strategy decisions and it is important to remember to hold your ground especially when you feel as though you have a good grasp for your team’s performance and strengths and you feel as though they are going to be misused in that particular match. Teams will often misrepresent their performance in a strategy meeting and you need to be able to identify and gently correct those situations while also being realistic about what your robot can do. Over-inflating your performance only hurts your alliance as a whole.

During a match, coaches interact with each other and this year inter-alliance communication will be critical, especially later in the season or in eliminations. I tend to think coaches will play a large role in this season. While interacting with other coaches, stay calm, keep your tone even, but speak loudly enough to be heard over the sounds of competition. Generally coaches need to stay close to their drive team but if you need to move to relay a message to another alliance member, that is perfectly reasonable.

During eliminations, most of the strategy time should be spent between matches and not while you are preparing for a match in the cue. Often cuing positions of the opposing teams will be nearby and you don’t want to give up your edge with an opposing alliance. Generally speaking, there is no problem asserting yourself if you feel strongly about a position and have data to support your position. We have always treated eliminations as an open discussion but it seems to be the alliance captain that makes the call. We have been able to persuade the captain with scouting data, however. Strategy discussions should generally be closed-door with only drive teams. Don’t bring your whole team.

Best of luck at competition! If you have any questions, please feel free to send me a private message.