On field Coach - Student or Adult

[Mastonevich]

Our team also tries to keep student involvement as high as possible and having a student drive coach works toward that goal. I kind of like that students are having to discuss strategies with adults, with some of the adults very persistent. It teaches them things that student to student only interaction would not otherwise achieve. Those skills will be used the rest of their lives. Mentor/Student interaction is what FIRST brings to the table and the differing views of teams regarding this subject just brings about another method for that interaction to occur.

However, personally I believe that it is normally a competitive advantage on most teams to have an experienced adult as the coach for the reasons already mentioned in this thread.

Everything is a compromise and one should be able to find positives and negatives for both approaches.

[AFron10]

This past weekend at championships I had the opportunity to stand on the field level and be right near the drive teams. Personally our team uses a student coach. As I watched divisional elimination matches I noticed some terrible things. For one of the matches there were 5 seconds left and a human player wasn't paying attention and then forgot to put the ball in play. All of the sudden the adult coach from there alliance (who was on a different team but on the same alliance) ran over and started to yell at the human player and included multiple inappropriate words directed to the student. The student already felt bad enough about it and the adult coach yelling at him didn't help at all. Their alliance won that match so he cooled down. I just think that the drive team should be only students so they can discuss things together on a peer to peer level.

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by AFron10

This past weekend at championships I had the opportunity to stand on the field level and be right near the drive teams. Personally our team uses a student coach. As I watched divisional elimination matches I noticed some terrible things. For one of the matches there were 5 seconds left and a human player wasn't paying attention and then forgot to put the ball in play. All of the sudden the adult coach from there alliance (who was on a different team but on the same alliance) ran over and started to yell at the human player and included multiple inappropriate words directed to the student. The student already felt bad enough about it and the adult coach yelling at him didn't help at all. Their alliance won that match so he cooled down. I just think that the drive team should be only students so they can discuss things together on a peer to peer level.

Our drive team also witnessed an adult drive coach on an alliance partner during qualification rounds yell at a student after the match to the point that he felt uncomfortable being near the incident.

[Dunngeon]

955 uses a student drive coach (me), which we prefer because we are a student run team. My only disappointment from this year is I was co-driving for our single driver (only one controller) and couldn't interface well with other teams while managing our driver.

I think this part hurt our robots performance at worlds because there was a lot more strategy going on which required more talking between the teams.

So, what I got from the season is that we needed 2 individuals who were quick on their feet with strategy and adaptation. One to co-drive our driver, and one to take the position of coach which will allow us adequate ability to work effectively with other teams. Ideally, this will be the driver, but it's extremely hard to find good drivers that can do strategy on the fly.

973 and 1717 did a great job managing strategy, going over all contingency plans before the match. Unfortunately we threw a wrench in their plans by missing an auto ball, but the strategy dictated what to do and contributed to a smooth match. That level of strategy was something I personally had never seen in a match, and would be a good argument for a mentor on strategy meetings or actually on the drive team in an effort to keep strategy at such a high level.

To address the adults that overpower the students, It's there, I had it attempted on me once. I suspect it would have been pulled more often if I didn't look 20 something). An Adult definitely would help most teams with this.

[SamanthaW]

4555 uses a student coach (me actually). With only three mentors and 10 students we're a very student-run team. We find that a student mentor works best for us because we know how to work with each other extremely well, and we've trained on the rules beyond belief.

[eddie12390]

We use a student coach. The only time that we have ever had issues with it is when an adult mentor feels that they should always be the sole deciding factor in things like match strategy. At Championships there were a few times that we felt like the adult coach on the other side was not listening to our input at all and that it was valuable in no way.

[popnbrown]

This was actually a pretty interesting issue for my rookie team this year. At our regional event, I would stand with my team as they were in queue and would listen in on the strategy talk but we had a student as our coach. He really took into strategy and for the rest of the event was always out of the pits talking to teams about strategy.

I would always ask him about our strategy, why it was that way, whether it works for us, etc, and I think that helped him really understand how to play the game, and to also pick out who should be doing what. I didn't go onto the field during the regional, and from what I could tell it seemed like there was minimal talking between him and our driver because our driver yelled back at him and so he decided it was best to not talk again (I found out post regional).

It also seemed like many other Coaches, adults and students were intimidating our driver and coach (they're both 7th graders). It also seemed like many adult coaches would disregard our student coach, and either talk directly to me while in queue or talk straight to our driver. It was pretty upsetting to our student coach, as he wanted to be involved but others didn't let him be.

At World Championships, I started to accompany them as the "Coach" but our student coach did strategy and was more involved with the driver. After I noticed there was 0 communication between him and our driver, I warned them both that this was no way for a drive team to act, and our driver needs to listen and our coach needs to talk. When he did talk, I realized why there was tension our coach wasn't focused on our strategy or what we were doing or our human player and rather his own agenda. Ex - he told our driver to go defend 254 (he's obsessed with dem Pofs), when we had the ball and were trying to drop it.

My experience being a coach, you can't take anything personal out on the field, your alliance partners will yell at you, everyone gets their blood pressure pumped but as soon as you leave the field or the match is over, everyone's back to their regular selves. My team members being so young, I don't think they saw that there was a different mask put on when you got on the field. Getting on the field, helped as coaches would yell at me rather than at our driver or student coach.

In general, I would agree with it being a student coach, however being on the field allowed me to encourage the students and directly be involved with this part of the process. It tremendously added to my perspective of what was happening and allowed me to give better feedback and mentor the entire drive team.

It's a tough situation, because I want the students to be the ones who not only come up with strategies but develop the skills to react real-time and change the strategy if need be. However, it doesn't help to be yelled at by others as that puts a frowny face on them. It's a difficult position as I can't help if I'm not there, but me being there doesn't develop those skills...I'll likely need to put more thought into this, and we'll figure this out as a team.

Not sure what to do going forward, but we'll see how it goes. Maybe sticking with 1 driver, 1 student coach, 1 adult coaching mentor, 1 human player maybe the best for us.

[Drivencrazy]

Originally Posted by Mastonevich

Our team also tries to keep student involvement as high as possible and having a student drive coach works toward that goal. I kind of like that students are having to discuss strategies with adults, with some of the adults very persistent. It teaches them things that student to student only interaction would not otherwise achieve.

Would your student drivers not get the same experience (more often perhaps) if the mentor was your drive coach?

[Chris is me]

No need to jump down anyone's throat yet - it's just a thread asking for the pros / cons of why you make the decision you do. There's going to be some people implicitly asserting that a student coach means your team is more student run, or that a mentor coach is inherently better for on field performance, or other incorrect assumptions like that. I would encourage people to ignore them.

2791 has always used a mentor coach, and probably always will in regular season events. The opportunity for direct mentorship between the drive coach, strategy mentors, and students on the drive team is just too great to pass up. Much like a great football coach can inspire a football team, or a great basketball coach can keep players in the zone while making strategic decisions, a great robotics coach can serve as a role model, leader, and friend to a drive team. Watching the current drive team "grow up" under the direction of our mentor coach over the past two years has been incredible, and I'm sure not a single member of the drive team would trade away the dynamic that's developed for anything else.

A student coach is not a bad coach. We have worked with excellent student coaches over the past several years, and I was even a student coach on my old team. Along the same lines, a mentor coach is not inherently bad either. When doing pre-match strategy, I pay almost no attention to the age of the other coaches. I care about how knowledgeable they are of the game, their robot, and the strengths / weaknesses of the alliance. We work together to come up with a plan that lets everyone contribute in a positive way. If we come in with a plan and the other alliance is opposed to it, we try and find a compromise that works. I don't feel I have been listened to in pre-match strategy more as an adult than a student. Whether or not I'm listened to depends on my confidence, the validity of the plan, and my willingness to work with others.

A lot of the problems people have in this thread aren't with student coaches or mentor coaches. These people actually have problems with coaches who are massive jerks. Regardless of age, massive jerks shouldn't be coaches, and teams shouldn't let massive jerks serve as their coaches. If we all adhered to this rule, this topic wouldn't be nearly as contentious. I will say that coaches need to be some of the most mature people on the team, and it's easier to find a mature mentor than a mature student, but that doesn't mean students can't be mature enough for the role.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

A lot of the problems people have in this thread aren't with student coaches or mentor coaches. These people actually have problems with coaches who are massive jerks. Regardless of age, massive jerks shouldn't be coaches, and teams shouldn't let massive jerks serve as their coaches. If we all adhered to this rule, this topic wouldn't be nearly as contentious. I will say that coaches need to be some of the most mature people on the team, and it's easier to find a mature mentor than a mature student, but that doesn't mean students can't be mature enough for the role.

This is a great analysis of the argument. It's not about age: adults and students can both be complete jerks, or can both be great coaches. In some cases, a student on a team may conduct themselves as a coach better than any mentor on their team, but in some cases there may not be a student who is capable of conducting themselves as a coach.

[Mastonevich]

Originally Posted by Drivencrazy

Would your student drivers not get the same experience (more often perhaps) if the mentor was your drive coach?

We have a strategy mentor work directly with the student drive team and most specifically the student drive coach before and after each match. On top of that they may get even more mentor/student interaction with another teams mentor when discussing strategy with other teams.

[Kyle Stewart]

Originally Posted by Thad House

We use a student drive coach, because we like the experience it gives to the students.

Most mentor drive coaches are great. They have the experience to know how to win, and most of the time I have no problems with mentor drive coaches. However, there are the few that can be very stubborn. The coaches on those teams look at our high number, and start treating us like we are a lesser team.

At worlds both this year and last year, we had robots that could perform and score, but there were teams that would look at our number and tell us because of that we were going to be relegated to doing defense or inbound because they do not believe we can do much, and telling us things like "If we lose, we are going to blame it on you." And that just is not how a team should act, and when they start, we usually have to send a mentor in to help calm the situation.

If a team wants to use a mentor or a student drive coach, its up to the team, but to all the mentor drive coaches, please be nice to the students ones, because they are trying as hard as they can, and putting them down just makes it worse.

Great job on the field out there, 4488! I'm sorry to hear that you were not respected by certain teams due solely to that first digit, you guys were a pleasure to watch and clearly had built a robot that exceeded the majority of older teams.

Our team uses an adult coach because of our policy of only having seniors participate in robotics. Personally, I think certain students can and do exceed the abilities of adults in coaching as in any regard. However, to be an effective coach I think a student has to spend a lot of time and energy understanding the game and being able to adapt quickly. It is not something that just any student can handle. Similarly, plenty of mentors make bad coaches if they lack those skills.

Heartily agree that the key thing is not to be a massive jerk.

[Jscout11]

We're soon reaching 200 students on the team, and see no reason why we can't find 8 dedicated student drivers. It just works for us

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Jscout11

We're soon reaching 200 students on the team, and see no reason why we can't find 8 dedicated student drivers. It just works for us

2....hundred... Dear god can we have some?

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by Thad House

At worlds both this year and last year, we had robots that could perform and score, but there were teams that would look at our number and tell us because of that we were going to be relegated to doing defense or inbound because they do not believe we can do much, and telling us things like "If we lose, we are going to blame it on you." And that just is not how a team should act, and when they start, we usually have to send a mentor in to help calm the situation.

You guys performed terrifically on and off the field. Any coach (student or mentor) that would tell any team "If we lose, we are going to blame it on you" is demented. In your case, triply so...

You have been so much fun to play against and watch play this year. You have a fine team and we look forward to many years of being on the field with you and to getting to know you better off the field too. You have an incredible set of mentors and parents that really enhances your team.

Have a great off season... (oops... well I bet you don't have an off-season really do you? We don't either...

At least now we can get a little more sleep...