Coaches/Mentors on the Drive Team

[wevets]

At the Cascade Regional, I was told that at least one drive team, maybe two, had adult coaches/mentors on them in the analyst position. Is this legal?

Legal or not, I think it's bad for a few reasons:

1. It imparts to the students that they don't have the ability to be analysts.
2. It deprives some student of a position on the drive team.
3. If, in fact, coaches/mentors have better judgement than students, it gives an unfair advantage to a team that has an adult on the drive team when other teams don't.
4. It just seems contrary to the FIRST principal that this is a competition of students, by students and for students.

And it begs the question, if an alliance won with a coach/mentor on thier drive team, wouldn't their win have a asterisk in the record books?

[Mike Betts]

Originally Posted by wevets

At the Cascade Regional, I was told that at least one drive team, maybe two, had adult coaches/mentors on them in the analyst position. Is this legal?

You should have been able to look this up yourself... From Section 1, Page 9:

HUMAN PLAYER – a pre-college student team member that fills one of the ALLIANCE roles of FEEDER or ANALYST. There is one HUMAN PLAYER per TEAM.

So we see that the ANALYST must be a pre-college student. The other alliance, if they knew the rules should have pointed this out to the referees.

That is assuming, of course, that this was factual and not hearsay...

Originally Posted by wevets

...
4. It just seems contrary to the FIRST principal that this is a competition of students, by students and for students.
...

In my 17 years of doing FIRST, I have never seen this written down or stated by anyone with FIRST. Stating this as a FIRST principal would appear to be in error...

You may want to concentrate more on facts in the future...

JMHO,

Mike

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by wevets

At the Cascade Regional, I was told that at least one drive team, maybe two, had adult coaches/mentors on them in the analyst position. Is this legal?

The analyst should not be confused with the Human player that is functioning as a 4th analyst. In some cases there just isn't a 4th student up to the task or just a 4th student period. One of the teams on Olympic started 3 seasons ago with 3 students and 1 mentor so everyone was on the drive team. Last year they were at that same level. This year they managed to expand their program to 5 students!!! They also managed to be 5th seed!!!

Originally Posted by Mike Betts

You should have been able to look this up yourself... From Section 1, Page 9:

So we see that the ANALYST must be a pre-college student. The other alliance, if they knew the rules should have pointed this out to the referees.

JMHO,

Mike

If the analyst we are talking about is the 3rd human player, ie not the feeder then yes the are supposed to be a pre-college age students. However if we are talking about the regular long standing analyst position then a college age student mentor or adult mentor is perfectly legal.

[EricH]

1) It is strictly illegal for the Analyst (or Feeder, or Drivers) to be an adult. I'm not sure of the penalty, but I would presume some form of practice-day warning, followed by various cards if continued (under Tournament rules--egregious behavior).
2) The Coach (Mr V, this is the proper term still) may be either an adult or a student. Team's choice. FIRST has specifically declined to make that decision. (These guys are easy to separate from the other drive team members--they have a unique button. IIRC, it's got a colored dot on it.)

If you think that an Analyst (NOT a Coach) is a post-high school adult, bring it up to the refs or other event officials. They'll do their checks or whatever they need to, and they'll come up with the answer of "they're legal" or "they're getting legal"--they just might not tell you what that answer is.

Regarding your point 4: Dave Lavery (who is a member of the FIRST Advisory Board, to my understanding) has made the point at numerous Kickoff events and posts on Chief Delphi: Teams that are competing without mentors are missing the point of FIRST. The idea is that students work with mentors to design and build these complicated machines that we call robots. Not mentors work without students. Not students work without mentors. Students draw inspiration from working with mentors. How they work together is left to the teams to determine individually.

Mentors+students design, build, test, and program the robot in not enough time, with not enough budget, and possibly while driving each other slightly crazy. The mentor-student combination is quite possibly one of the most effective out there--witness the powerhouse teams, most if not all of whom use that model to great effect on and off the competition field.

To answer your other points:
1) Not valid, as Analysts are a student-only position. If you're thinking of the Coach, I'll get there in a minute.
2) Not necessarily. Maybe the rest of the students didn't want the job. Maybe the team cycles drive teams, with an A and a B team, allowing more students on a drive team. Maybe none of the students wanted the tremendous pressure (YOU strategize on the fly for 2:00 and communicate the strategy to your drivers, your partner's coaches, and the Analyst for the alliance!). There are a variety of reasons on both sides.
3) Does it now. You're assuming that mentors have better judgment. It would probably be more accurate to say more experience, but we'll let that slide. That isn't always the case. Also, it's not uncommon for a student coach to beat a mentor coach. It's all in the strategy and the execution. Remember that pressure I mentioned earlier? Pressure can really break someone.

On to your final question: Because FIRST specifically allows mentors to coach as the Coach, no, there are no asterisks for wins that have a mentor in the Coach position on the drive team. There are questionable wins, yes... but they're not from the makeup of the drive team. They tend to be from somebody on the field crew making a large blunder (like calling something not scored when the rules said it should be, and then replaying the match 15 minutes later instead of fixing the score when it was brought to their attention).

[techedguy]

I've had this discussion with other coaches, and I have been in the stands and for just a few matches on the floor.

While FIRST doesn't have any ruling against or supporting their being adults on the floor (it is allowed of course), I have heard this two ways:

1) The adult mentor on the floor has more experience with how these games go. Based on that experience they are putting their team in a position to be successful on the field. They have more years experience handling a pressure situation, particularly if they do this each year. They also may hold more sway in convincing alliance partners of their strategy decisions than a student may.

2) The opportunity to lead and take leadership in a pressure situation is an experience students should have. Where else will they learn to drive the ship if no one puts them at the helm?

I almost went the #1 direction this year. In the past I have largely left the field operations to students. #2 won out because I've had years of competitive sports and sports coaching experiences to draw on. I will be happier with the results if I worked with those student leaders on how to lead others than if I took control away and asked them to watch how I do it. In coaching my work is before the match. During the match the work I put in in advance will reveal itself in how my students handle situations. If there are mistakes, I talk with those students after to correct them for the future.

My 2 cents.

[BGiraud]

Couldn't the legal mentor/coach step back and let his teams analyst step forward and effectively coach the drive team allowing the mentor/coach to move between teams in the drive team area to effectively act as the analyst?

[Paul Copioli]

Salvatore,

I have heard the statement #1 in your post as really the main argument for an adult coach for many years. In my point of view, that is not even remotely the reason we do it. We can be successful with student or mentor drive coaches. Our reason is simple: Our team does everything jointly: design, prototype, build, test, marketing, PR, chairman's, etc. so why not the on the field action? Inspiration comes from witnessing greatness. On our team that inspiration is bi-directional. Every year I am amazed at how advanced our students are at various things and they always seem to teach me a thing or two. We try to work hand in hand with the students and that does not stop at the field border. As a matter of fact, my scouting captain taught me a good lesson at the Detroit District this past weekend, but that story is for another time.

Please note that I am not saying our way is better than your way, but it is our way and is perfectly legal with the rules.

Paul

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by BGiraud

Couldn't the legal mentor/coach step back and let his teams analyst step forward and effectively coach the drive team allowing the mentor/coach to move between teams in the drive team area to effectively act as the analyst?

In hypothetical terms, there is nothing illegal about this.

Originally Posted by wevets

Legal or not, I think it's bad for a few reasons:

1. It imparts to the students that they don't have the ability to be analysts.
2. It deprives some student of a position on the drive team.
3. If, in fact, coaches/mentors have better judgement than students, it gives an unfair advantage to a team that has an adult on the drive team when other teams don't.
4. It just seems contrary to the FIRST principal that this is a competition of students, by students and for students.

And it begs the question, if an alliance won with a coach/mentor on thier drive team, wouldn't their win have a asterisk in the record books?

FIRST is not by the students for the students. Maybe thats how your team is run, but that's not what the program is about. FIRST's goal is to connect students with Industry Professionals with the hope that those professionals will inspire their students to pursue the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Some of the higher ups in FIRST have often said that if you're not working with Mentors from the Industry you're missing out.

It bothers me that you consider an Adult Coach and Unfair advantage - because it's not. EVERY team is allowed to chose either an Adult or a Student to be the Coach, no one is telling you that you must use either one. If you truly feel that an Adult Coach is so Advantageous, then maybe you need to reassess your priorities and see if you can fit an Adult Coach into your team.

Also, if you were to go back through the years and asterisk every team that won with an Adult mentor, then you'd probably Asterisk more than 2/3rds of the Regional and Championship winners in history.

(I do apologize if my tone is a bit harsh, I get a little offended by people who claim that Adult Coaches are a bad thing...)

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by wevets

4. It just seems contrary to the FIRST principal that this is a competition of students, by students and for students.

And it begs the question, if an alliance won with a coach/mentor on thier drive team, wouldn't their win have a asterisk in the record books?

I'd be interested to know the resources that you are using to provide you with these ideas. What type of training are you receiving that is guiding you into understanding that FRC is 'of students, by students, and for students'? Why would an asterisk be needed in the record books? If you respond, please provide adequate resources to support your statements.

In the FIRST website, there is a page that you might be interested in reading before you respond. There are several links on that page that you might check into as well as spending some time browsing the FRC sections of the FIRST website. There are also many threads here in Chief Delphi that discuss roles of mentors and students on the teams, including drive teams, if you care to do a search. Basically, it comes down to how you want to shape your team and what goals your team will set and strive for. It doesn't have anything to do with judging other teams or having preconceived notions regarding what FRC is. Take some time to think about the word, partnerships, when discussing the roles of students and adult mentors/coaches on teams. It will deepen your understanding of what FRC is really about.

Jane

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by BGiraud

Couldn't the legal mentor/coach step back and let his teams analyst step forward and effectively coach the drive team allowing the mentor/coach to move between teams in the drive team area to effectively act as the analyst?

I think that what BGiraud states above is within the rules, although it probably doesn't match the GDC's intent. (Then again, our team has a history of not correctly discerning the intent of various rules, so it's fully within the intent of the GDC.)

Since before ship date, we have talked about possibly doing the above, although we haven't yet done so at a tournament. I'm curious as to whether or not other teams have utilized this approach.

[IndySam]

I think the GDC's intent was what the heck do we do with the extra human player

The rules are basically allowing 4 sets of eyes and 4 brains that are not allowed to touch the robot controls to help the drive teams this year. How an alliance chooses to use those resources are up to them.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by BGiraud

Couldn't the legal mentor/coach step back and let his teams analyst step forward and effectively coach the drive team allowing the mentor/coach to move between teams in the drive team area to effectively act as the analyst?

COACH – a student or adult mentor identified as the person wearing the designated "COACH" pin or button during a MATCH. There is one COACH per TEAM.

ANALYST – a HUMAN PLAYER that assists the COACHES with strategy. There is one ANALYST per ALLIANCE.

There is nothing that limits what a coach or analyst can do on any team or alliance (except that a coach can't touch the controls). During the match there's quite a bit of overlap between coaching and analyzing. There's nothing that precludes one team's coach from coaching / giving strategy to another team on their alliance (nothing new this year - it's always been that way). Basically you now have 4 student/mentor coaches/strategizers per alliance, of which at least one must be a student.

[Avernelle8]

Having a coach/mentor on any team is an advantage but students still need the advice and help from another wheter it be a different team, coach, student etc.,

[Dylan Gramlich]

This discussion, as many know, has been brought up many times. There are many other threads that deal with the adult vs student coach scenario. Such as the link posted below to another thread on this topic.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=67426

But the original question that was brought up was about an adult analyst which is illegal per the rules. Now the adult maybe had the coaches badge but let their student analyst take over for a match or two so that they could be there to observe and instruct while also remaining legal. Team SparX did this in 2007 when I moved to Human player one match while my brother Cory (who was driver for 3 years) wore the coaches badge and helped our new driver so that he could learn from a college student with experience at the position. Just a thought.

[Bob Steele]

We have a drive team... that consists of a driver an operator a coach and a human player.
The only position that is allowed to be an adult is the coach position.

Depending on what the alliance determines, our human player may be throwing tubes this year, or being the "analyst"

On our team I act as the Coach... I am a mentor.
This is what brings us the most success and allows me to direct our actions if necessary. It also allows me to remind our team members to act in gracious ways and to assist other teams (whether they are in OUR alliance or the OPPOSING alliance) Normally I don't have to say anything... except act as an extra pair of eyes and look at the greater strategy.

I may wander across the entire back of the driving area and help other teams or adjust strategy on the fly....

This works for our team... it works for many teams. I learned from some of the very best, back in the Midwest. I got to see teams like 111, 71, 217, 45 and many others in action. I got to coach with them behind the glass. I saw many really great things happening.... I adopted this method..

You can certainly decide what your team wants to do but please don't put your value judgements on other teams.

Our team has seen several teams "stretch" the rules on the field... we discuss this... we learn from our actions...we simply won't do that.

We play by the rules and we act in as gracious and professional manner as we can.

My heart is still moved when my drive team mates are the first across the field to congratulate the team that just beat us ...

Sometimes mentors lead in order to provide the example for their team members.... sometimes we get to watch the students lead....

It is interesting to see just how much teams are like their mentors.... As mentors we have a great duty.... like it or not... we are role models... our teams will emulate us...good or bad....

This is a big lesson to learn

We all have lessons to learn...
students AND mentors...

Good luck on the field!!