On field Coach - Student or Adult

[hrench]

Though I think any team with an adult coach has a couple of advantages, I think it's absolutely the wrong thing to do.


I just looked up 'mentor'--"an experienced and trusted advisor" An advisor just helps with his advice.

We adults could just design and build the robot too and I'm pretty sure it would be better than the kid-built one. Probably could drive better too--the best fighter pilots are in their 40s. But this game is for the kids to learn. Any jobs we do are ones that they don't get to learn from.

When I see my drive coach go-up against an adult in a disagreement, she always 'loses' even when she's right. Its just not fair. Against the spirit of this organization. My opinion.

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

You have an excellent point that is a strong argument in favor of student coaches. I just want to add that mentor coaches are not always at the expense of students learning. In some cases, students learn and grow more from working with an experienced mentor coach than they do with a peer. We don't really use an adult coach to get a competitive advantage - we use one to better inspire our kids within our particular team dynamic.

Basically, I get the idea from a lot of people (not really you, just reminded me of it) that student coaches are inherently more educational and mentor coaches are chosen for competitive reasons. I just want to provide an example to show that isn't always the case.

FYI, I as a mentor was the "official" coach for our team during World Championships. We only had 1 driver (and 3 kids...) so it made sense.

I completely agree, mentor coaches aren't necessarily competitive (they aren't necessarily not competitive either). I actually think that what I was talking about are skills that even drivers and human players can use. Being there on the field, I was able to provide soooo much better feedback than I was at Regionals and actually mentor the team to realize how to better work together. Also...we had some driver/student coach tension to work out, and being on the field helped me realize why, and it's something I can fix now.

I like the idea of feeling it out and doing it as is every year. There's a lot of teams that seem to change it up per year, and I plan on re-evaluating every year and doing that. We might even just stick to 1 driver for a bit (we'll see!)

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by hrench

Though I think any team with an adult coach has a couple of advantages, I think it's absolutely the wrong thing to do.

When I see my drive coach go-up against an adult in a disagreement, she always 'loses' even when she's right. Its just not fair. Against the spirit of this organization. My opinion.

I think you've been with bad coaches, and even horrible mentors. An adult coach is a "mentor" and someone who should be advising. The people you are talking about are not mentors either and therefore are not qualified to be in that position.

Once a mentor, always a mentor. It doesn't matter if it's my team, the team a mile away or a team from Israel. It's my obligation and duty to mentor any and all students. Unless, I personally think that our alliance would have NOTHING to gain, I would have never even disagreed. Heck...I've succumbed to some strategies by other teams, that were bogus.

Originally Posted by hrench

I just looked up 'mentor'--"an experienced and trusted advisor" An advisor just helps with his advice.

An adult coach is a mentor of the team. I barely strategize with alliance partners, only if a student of mine answers incorrectly (ex (this never happend) says we can shoot with just a kitbot). I am there to observe, guide and advise. It's hard, but I even tried to withhold my comments during matches unless I really needed to step in because our driver and coach were arguing a minute into the match.

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by hrench

Any jobs we do are ones that they don't get to learn from.

This is the only thing I cannot confidently disagree with. I'm not positive if our student coach learned anything from the way I acted. He did understand his mistakes and his eagerness to defend 254, 624 and other teams to "show off" rather than playing to our strategy. Whether or not that will stay with him, we'll see.

[CaptainDanger]

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.

Completely agreed, I believe student coaches are better because they can relate to their drive team and other drive teams on the same level. Speaking from experience, I was our team's human player this year and at world champs, one of the adult drive coaches on our alliance came up to me and asked if I'd ever human playered before. I was shocked and when I said yes, I've been our HP at both our regionals, he asked if I was sure I knew how to do it properly, and if I was confident in my abilities because I'm only 5'0". He then proceeded to tell me in a voice I would use on a five year old, 'See, you don't touch the ball until the pedastal is lit up' and demonstrated how to take the ball of the pedastal. It was a little hurtful and I don't think it's fair for any adults to speak to students like that.

That being said, I understand that not all mentors are like that, so if you have mentors that can relate to students, then they make awesome drive coaches too It all comes down to the idea that yes the drive coach is the leader of the drive team, but they shouldn't abuse their authority, whether they're a mentor or a student.

[BigRickT]

Although I could see the case where a student coach would be an acceptable solution. The majority of the time, having an adult mentor on the field is a better choice. When I coached in the past, my role was to make sure the drive team was focused and had their emotions in check. Sounds easy, but it is not.

[belle94]

Originally Posted by BigRickT

Although I could see the case where a student coach would be an acceptable solution. The majority of the time, having an adult mentor on the field is a better choice. When I coached in the past, my role was to make sure the drive team was focused and had their emotions in check. Sounds easy, but it is not.

I agree that it isn't easy, but I don't think that you can make such sweeping generalisations about one choice being better than the other. We have always had a student coach, and at least in my time, our coaches have been great. Like others have said, they have to understand the rules, be able to make quick decisions, be able to keep their cool under pressure, etc, and this is what we take into consideration when choosing a coach. I drove my senior year and our coach that year was fantastic. I truly believe that she was the best person for the role of anyone on the team, mentors or students. She knew the rules and knew what we had to do in any given match. She was able to stand up for us if she believed we weren't being heard. She stayed calm and communicated effectively with our operator and me on and off the field. She kept her eyes on the field as a whole so that I could stay focused on our robot.

Our aforementioned drive coach was in that role for two years, and she was better than some coaches I saw that had five, ten, and more years of experience. As many others have said, it's not about how old the coach is or how experienced they are. It's about how well the person can do the job.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

From a pre-match perspective, I try to ask our alliance partners what they can do and what strategy they would like to run. 95% of the time, it's exactly what we want to do anyways. The other 5% we need to have a discussion on how to comprimise on the differences. I hope to not come off as a jerk during strategy discussions. But, we will call out a team that is lying about their capabilities.

Adam,
thanks for saying this.
Its what many mentors who are drive coaches feel who have done it for a long time.

Teams need to be honest about their capabilities. Be realistic. The frustration lies when people claim they can do things and absolutely cannot.

I would think that every alliance in every match wants to maximize their capabilities. Its starts by telling the truth.
The data doesnt lie.

[Tinmint1]

I don't see a problem either way with a student or mentor coach but...

At one of our district events we picked a team based on someone else's data. when we tried to talk strategy, their student drive coach started speaking down to two adult mentors, one was ours the other was our first pick and we respected. I think that when it comes to strategy, especially in eliminations, an adult mentor should be there to at least keep the students under control. The student drive coach left a rather sour taste in our mouths about the team. Along with other teams who saw the conversation go on.

I understand the experience it gives students but if they are going to coach they need to know how to speak to adults coaches on other teams in a respectable manner.

[who716]

Team 716 has had a wide array of coaches for our team, in 2012 it was all student based, but we assured our self's that we knew the rules before we went out to the field, in 2013 the coach was our lead mentor. and in 2014 it was a previous student who was on drive team. I believe the coach position should be for who ever understand the game the best, and have the ability to make quick changes.

[wesbass23]

Originally Posted by hrench

I just looked up 'mentor'--"an experienced and trusted advisor" An advisor just helps with his advice.

Is that not also a definition for coach? The coach does not touch the robot or the controls (except for maybe aiding in carrying it on or off the field), so in the end it is the students who are in control.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Adam,
thanks for saying this.
Its what many mentors who are drive coaches feel who have done it for a long time.

Teams need to be honest about their capabilities. Be realistic. The frustration lies when people claim they can do things and absolutely cannot.

I would think that every alliance in every match wants to maximize their capabilities. Its starts by telling the truth.
The data doesnt lie.

Especially at regionals, we generally come the most prepared to the pre-match discussion (I get good scouting data, plus the scouts discuss and pass along an ideal plan to me). Also, since we're usually in contention for top 8, we're usually one of the few teams in the match (later in the days) that still are truly affected by win/loss.

However, even with that being said. I ALWAYS (barring a huge time crunch) ask the other teams what they would like to do to start the conversation. More often than not, they are pretty much in agreement, and we just elaborate on that and make a more formal plan.

From there, if there are disagreements. I explain my point of view (often many teams didn't initially understand the importance of assists this year for example) and their eyes usually light up and they go "OH!" and learn something new, and generally agree with us.

Rarely do we truly have a conflict down there, and we try to resolve it as best as possible. I will never FORCE a team do anything (not that I could), as a team that has a bad attitude about a plan will often not follow it. And I'd rather know pre-match they are doing their own thing, versus having it all fall apart during the match. Sometimes I will explain to teams that them showing off a feature versus playing smart to win the match is WORSE in terms of getting picked in most games, but I generally try to avoid getting down this route as often the argument is too far gone and no consensus can be reached.

I always end with asking if everyone is both happy and comfortable with the plan. I want it to be a discussion that leads to a consensus decision.

Even with all that, I still get complaints and compliments in cases where I wouldn't expect them. Times when it seems like everyone agrees and is happy, I'll get a complain that I "talked too much", when I was really just leading the discussion and everyone was included. Some of the times I walk away from a match where we had some tense discussion and I know no one felt good about it, and I'll get feedback that my honesty and thoroughness was appreciated, even if we disagreed.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

Especially at regionals, we generally come the most prepared to the pre-match discussion (I get good scouting data, plus the scouts discuss and pass along an ideal plan to me). Also, since we're usually in contention for top 8, we're usually one of the few teams in the match (later in the days) that still are truly affected by win/loss.

However, even with that being said. I ALWAYS (barring a huge time crunch) ask the other teams what they would like to do to start the conversation. More often than not, they are pretty much in agreement, and we just elaborate on that and make a more formal plan.

From there, if there are disagreements. I explain my point of view (often many teams didn't initially understand the importance of assists this year for example) and their eyes usually light up and they go "OH!" and learn something new, and generally agree with us.

Rarely do we truly have a conflict down there, and we try to resolve it as best as possible. I will never FORCE a team do anything (not that I could), as a team that has a bad attitude about a plan will often not follow it. And I'd rather know pre-match they are doing their own thing, versus having it all fall apart during the match. Sometimes I will explain to teams that them showing off a feature versus playing smart to win the match is WORSE in terms of getting picked in most games, but I generally try to avoid getting down this route as often the argument is too far gone and no consensus can be reached.

I always end with asking if everyone is both happy and comfortable with the plan. I want it to be a discussion that leads to a consensus decision.

Even with all that, I still get complaints and compliments in cases where I wouldn't expect them. Times when it seems like everyone agrees and is happy, I'll get a complain that I "talked too much", when I was really just leading the discussion and everyone was included. Some of the times I walk away from a match where we had some tense discussion and I know no one felt good about it, and I'll get feedback that my honesty and thoroughness was appreciated, even if we disagreed.

All of this is spot on.

Coaches (either students or mentors) could learn a lot from following the methods Adam just outlined. I follow a very similar, if not identical, model for coaching.

I'll add a few things. As much as I love the robots, this competition is about inspiring STUDENTS. I believe students are not only inspired by robots but by relating with older scientists and engineers.

To facilitate relationships, I am very intentional about asking students and coaches their names. Knowing a name is powerful tool. It breaks down barriers, communicates appreciation and interest, and gives people a sense of belonging.

Also, find ways to compliment each team's robot. Especially as a coach of a high performing team, finding features to praise about a teams machine will mean the world to those students.

-Mike

[Pjtruslow]

I do FTC, and we absolutely never have adult coaches. our coaches are great with using tools or helping make things when complex equipment is being used, but our students are the ones who spend months focusing on the game, know their robot like the back of their hand, and can properly strategize. we usually pick a student who has the confidence to lead the team and wouldn't be ignored by the alliance partners.

[debbiemusselman]

For team 708, we have an adult coach who is also our programming mentor. This is important because you need to have at least one person out on the field that understands what is going on with the code and having the programming mentor helps a lot when your are trying to figure out what is going wrong on the field. He makes sure that it is the students on the drive team talking strategy with our alliance partners and will only step in when he needs to and will talk to all three drive teams once we are in que to make sure that we all know what our strategy is.
Personally, I enjoy having an adult coach on the field, not only for their experience, but because of what they can teach you just by being around them. I have been on the drive team for 2 years now and have gotten to know our coach really well and it helps to have the same person out there from year to year because they know what is going on and they don't get as stressed out because they are used to the environment. It also helps to have an adult mentor because they can help you keep you under control when you get frustrated about something that happened in a match, whereas a student coach might not know how to react.