Student or Adult Coach

[New Lightning]

I really want to know the data for this year,

[IronicDeadBird]

What if we have both?

[New Lightning]

I was referring to what your using this year. And if you use both throughout the year, then why make the switch.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

What if we have both?

Similar to what I was thinking. 20 uses student coaches right now, and 5254 uses adult coaches right now.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by New Lightning

I really want to know the date for this year,

2016... The rest of the date tends to vary through the year.

[New Lightning]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

2016... The rest of the date tends to vary through the year.

Lol, *Data

[PayneTrain]

We let mentors drive the robot since they built it.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

We let mentors drive the robot since they built it.

You monster frisbee!!

[marshall]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

We let mentors drive the robot since they built it.

Us too! It's awesome! The best part is the students cheering us on from the stands!

I'll be here all week folks, good night! *drops the mic*

[CalTran]

I believe the party line goes something like "We utilize a student coach, because we are a student lead, student built team. The mentors are only here to supervise and make sure we don't injure ourselves." As well, it means that one more student gets to be on the drive team, the position most teams consider one of the most coveted.

That being said, I believe that a mentor serving as a coach is more beneficial than a student coach. Having a mentor be the drive coach means that they will generally be more level headed during stressful situations, they are able to retain the subtle nuances of matches from year to year, and the are able to consistently train the next generation. A mentor coach means that they're more likely able to bring their knowledge year in and year out. Most teams have their drive team as a one-and-done affair.

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by CalTran

That being said, I believe that a mentor serving as a coach is more beneficial than a student coach. Having a mentor be the drive coach means that they will generally be more level headed during stressful situations, they are able to retain the subtle nuances of matches from year to year, and the are able to consistently train the next generation. A mentor coach means that they're more likely able to bring their knowledge year in and year out. Most teams have their drive team as a one-and-done affair.

I completely disagree that a mentor will be more beneficial than a student coach. Team 599 didn't just have a student as the coach, but the student was the person dealing with strategy in the rookie year. He did a much better job than most adults. It was something we continued year after year.

[TylerS]

Having had first hand experience being on a drive team with a mentor coach and being the coach of a drive team as a student I think I can draw a firm conclusion.

IT DOESN'T MATTER.

If your goal is to win matches (it might not be) then pick the best person for the job. This might be a student, mentor, support animal, whatever. The hard part isn't deciding between a mentor or student it's about identifying the individual on your team who will best fill the role of a coach and how to do that is a whole other discussion.

[BordomBeThyName]

I'm the drive team mentor for 2102 this year, but my involvement with the drive team doesn't extend past the cueing line. Sure, having an adult behind the plexi would get us better odds of winning, but so would having an adult build and drive the thing.

That's not the point of FIRST though, is it? I guess this question rolls up into the larger (and very old) discussion of how much involvement mentors should have on a team. We've always come down hard on the "stand back and advise" side of that, but that's just us. If I wanted to see a competition of professionally built robots, I wouldn't be volunteering at a high school program.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by TylerS

If your goal is to win matches (it might not be) then pick the best person for the job.

This might be a student, mentor, support animal, whatever. The hard part isn't deciding between a mentor or student it's about identifying the individual on your team who will best fill the role of a coach and how to do that is a whole other discussion.

BRB, giving my dog all my 1923 shirts & freeing up weekends

Joking aside, this is pretty much it. Each team is gonna do what's right for them, and as long as the team itself is happy overall with the decision, then it's all gravy. I like to think our kids are happy with me as a coach, but if our student leadership ever approached me with a solution they thought might be better for our goals as a team, I'd be more than willing to give it a shot.

In my experience, a great deal of coaching success comes from striking a balance - between being confident and headstrong enough to make a call regarding the match, and being gracious & accommodating enough to be an agreeable and likeable partner for quals and elims alike.

That is a trait of maturity, which (for the most part) is achievable at any age.

[seg9585]

On a serious note to answer the question of "why", there are actually several reasons we have an adult coach but a few of the big ones:

When dealing with other teams in your alliance, things can get a little heated sometimes about which team feels their strategy for the round is optimal. I frequently see other teams with overzealous/bossy adult coaches who feel their strategy for the upcoming round is the only way, and the students get intimidated by it (and will frequently "cower" to the other adult coach when they don't have another adult to stand up for them). My goal is to help the alliance make more level-headed decisions regardless of whether the alliance partners have student or adult coaches.

Students have great decision-making abilities and are very smart, but in the end are still kids and can make mistakes (just like an adult could). What the adult has, though, is experience, and with that experience comes knowing their own history of "what has gone wrong" in the past and what to do to mitigate it. The coach is always the second set of eyes for the students to make sure the robot is configured to plan on the field, the joysticks are plugged into the correct ports, etc. There have been so many times the students forgot some of the important field config steps and it cost us rounds, and sometimes an adult with experience is the best person to double-check their work.

I feel the coach should be the best person on the team for the job, regardless of whether it's a student or adult mentor. A team shouldn't "force" itself to choose between picking an adult vs picking a student because of its team history or because "that's the way it should be".