Mentors on drive team

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by EricH

If poker is a sport, robotics is definitely a sport. We do more than move playing cards around... (Hey, poker does show up quite often on ESPN, who is known as "the worldwide leader in sports".)

There was a time when the FIRST Championships were on ESPN.
So even ESPN thought FIRST was a sport.

[waialua359]

Our team has had better success with an adult coach on the field, versus student based on the # of banners. Both have brought home banners.

However, as Chris F. pointed out, its about the best combination/chemistry of 4 members that represent the drive team, giving you the best chance to win.
All that learning mumbo jumbo......................, if you've been through an entire FRC season before, there's lots of opportunities for that.

Heck. The only time I ever get to really talk to the great mentors of other teams is on the field!

[Bob Steele]

I agree with Glenn,
One of the only times I get to see the other mentors is on the field and I thoroughly enjoy working with you and other mentors on the field.

i think everyone needs to do what is best for their team...the team is important and putting your best drive team on the field is what is best for the team.

I remember when a teacher at my school once complained because only 3 students operated the robot... how could that be good for a group of students? I tried to explain to him that the drive team was just a small part of what was happening...EVERYONE on the team is important and we all do our jobs the best we can.

On our team I am the coach on the field. I, like many other coaches, have had a great deal of experience on the field... I think at last count I had coached well over 300 matches at regionals and the world championship. Many times the experience that I have has helped our team.

I may be old and feeble...(lol) with no attention span and an inability to do more than one thing at once. but I don't find those things to be a deficit on the field. They even let me bring my walker out onto the field... but they won't let me bring the seeing eye dog...(:0)) (He can't see over the drivers station anyway so it wouldn't help much...)

I don't find those traits hold me back much as an engineer and college professor either..

Find out what is best for your team and go for it.

[pfreivald]

smurfgirl, such reasonableness and tolerance will not be tolerated. This is the internet!

[pandamonium]

IMHO a mentor taking the coaching position is the easy way out. It is far more difficult to hone the communication skills and analytical skills of a student, to shape them and guide them but I have seen first hand how rewarding it can be.

that being said it is not a clear cut thing, and there are certain situations and teams that it works well for.

[Brian Ha]

What our team has decided on doing is, pick a human player tall and strong enough to launch the tube, then do drivers training to pick a good driver, do some co-pilot driving to pick the best co-pilot and then have the drivers pick the person they work best with because otherwise there will be no communications. AT ALL. Trust me this is true and if you think about it this has been happening for centuries. I mean look at men and women, men don't always listen and women have selective hearing. It's give and take people and to take you need to listen. Now this is going on and on so i will shut up but that's an idea.

[RMiller]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

There was a time when the FIRST Championships were on ESPN.
So even ESPN thought FIRST was a sport.

In addition, The Scripps National Spelling Bee is normally on one of the ESPN channels.

For the record: ESPN is The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network.

Lots of things can be thrown under "entertainment" and not be a sport. I will leave it to the reader/viewer to decide what they deem to be a sport.

[bscharles]

Our team chooses to have a student be the coach. We too have that "mentors hands off" approach. Also, IMHO, i think it should be the students out there. If, for example, two coaches from different teams had different opinions about the strategy for their alliance, and one was a mentor and one a student, i think it would be expected to go with the mentor's opinion, because of their experience, while the student's could be just as valid.

[RogerHebert]

Like everything else in FIRST, whether it's better for the drive team to be all student (or not) depends on whether the students are learning anything from having a mentor present. Just having a mentor on the drive team so your team does better in competition is not the point of FIRST. Likewise, preventing mentors from being on the drive team just so the team is totally student run isn't the point either. If the students learn something valuable from having the mentor there (strategy, GP, grace and ability to perform under pressure), great. Those are all important concepts mentors can help with, but in an ideal world the drive team could be coached about this ahead of time. For example, in the past, I've intervened when our drive team students were getting a bit too emotional and straying from the gold standard: GP & Calm, Cool and Collected. Now we have those discussions ahead of time (or after the fact if it occurs), and we tend to have less of that problem.

The ultimate, IMHO, is having the mentors collaborate with, and properly prepare students in advance for the stress/fun/challenge of the drive team experience. Then cut them loose. You can always chat about what could have been done better after the match.

But for rookie teams, or teams with a very young/inexperienced drive team, having a mentor is probably a good idea.

[MagiChau]

I find myself agreeing with the importance of having a good drive coach. Since there will be an analyst they could take care of overall alliance tactics for the match while showing the signals to the feeders. I believe it should not matter if the person is a student or mentor if they have what it takes to assist that drive team. Students may have more knowledge of the rules and thinking up of how to assist the drive team due to generally, more free time. Mentors may have more experience from past competitions or life experience to lead that drive team.
There is no right answer ever since circumstances always are changing under our noses.

[GoSparx]

So, I'll put in my 2 cents, and this may have been covered earlier in the thread, I just havent checked. On SparX we have never used a mentor coach, and we have had many wins at the both the regional and national levels. But, on the other side of things, the HOT team 67 had a mentor coach in 2005, 2009 and 2010 and all 3 years they won nationals (I believe they have had a mentor coach always, but those 3 years stood out in my head). So I think it does work both ways, and a mentor coach isnt always a bad thing.

[MaxMax161]

I'd like to pose a question to the forum.

Our team is lucky enough to be able to afford attending two regionals. What do you guys (and galls) think about having a mentor coach one, or part of one, regional and the student coach another?

I think this is the best way to ultimately train the student coach. I think the student coach learning from and being inspired by the mentor coach and then, getting on the field coaching experience from the second regional, is the best recipe for a competent, professional, engineer. What do you think?

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by MaxMax161

I'd like to pose a question to the forum.

Our team is lucky enough to be able to afford attending two regionals. What do you guys (and galls) think about having a mentor coach one, or part of one, regional and the student coach another?

I think this is the best way to ultimately train the student coach. I think the student coach learning from and being inspired by the mentor coach and then, getting on the field coaching experience from the second regional, is the best recipe for a competent, professional, engineer.

I think that if y'all think that's a good idea, it doesn't matter what we think!

[Chris is me]

Student coaching in off seasons is another way to do it.

[Jstack14]

To me, mentors should not be on the drive team. FIRST is about the students. Yes we need mentors to learn, however many teams take this to far. The driving should be all about the students. The strategy should be the students. Sure the mentors should give their advice before competition and the students should take it in, but it should be the STUDENTS hchoice. If mentors become overinvolved failures aren't as impactful. As a member of a strictly student build studnet run team, i have learned som uch from our shortcomings and successes. Our mentors give us input AFTER we come up with our ideas, but before we do something dumb. They give suggestions fo our designs after we try to troubleshoot them completley. Mentors should be just hat, a guide, a teacher. Teachers don't let their students completly fail, however they do let them explore and learn for them self first.