Being the drive coach

[Libby K]

Everyone's said pretty good things so far- Sean, Justin, and Calvin especially. Just wanted to touch on something I also find pretty important.

Originally Posted by Justin Montois

Above all else, this. Often times your teammates will question one thing or another even when you're winning. You need to keep the drive team focused and positive. When you return to the pit after especially a loss everyone wants to know what happened or why you did this or that, you need to keep the drive team focused on the next match.

This one's especially important in my head. After a loss (or even a winning match not going the way you'd planned) there tends to be this swarm of non-drive-team-students, either along the walk back to the pit or in the pit, going 'what happened, why did we do this?' While it's certainly important to review what happened in matches and fix any issues going on, make sure you're keeping your drivers out of that frenzy. Especially during the already-stressful elims. Keep them calm, positive, and focused on the next match.

On 1923 this is pretty easily solved, as we have one mentor who's our drive coach, and another who's the 'pit boss'. When the robot comes back, drive team reports whatever issue is happening and passes on any relevant info, and the mentors and students stationed in the pit help take care of it without putting too much extra stress on the drivers. As Calvin said, other students who know how to prep the robot before a match can let your drive team relax before they're meeting with their next alliance partners.

Sean touched on this as well, but it's important for a drive coach to help act as a buffer around the students sometimes - when things go wrong, the coach needs to have thick enough skin to deal with things calmly and keep the team positive.