Coaching Questions...

[Chris_Elston]

Hello everyone,

I have a coaching question.

This is the first year that I have lead the robotics team, but last year I was just a programmer helper and I did coach the entire regional. So this year and last year are very different. I have the wonderful support of eight more engineers that most of them will be attending this year’s regional.

Typically do you let multiple coaches lead your team? I'd like to give this experience and opportunity to the other engineers, but at the same time I'd like to know what works for other teams. I am concerned with multi coaches telling the team drivers different things each match. One coach wants it done this way, while another this way. In my mind, if I select one coach, that one coach will learn each match, and the drivers only listen to one person's ideas of how to play the rounds. At the same token, we have developed a strategy as a team already so everyone should know our game play on the team even all the engineers that could be coaches.

So what do other teams do? Multi coaches or one coach?

[Greg Needel]

in my experience 1 coach is the best situation because drivers/co-drivers fall into a rhythm with each other as well as with the coach, if you keep changing coaches that position will become useless as the communication type will keep changing.

If you wanted to change things up the best way would be to bring the new individual with you during your strategy sessions and have them stand behind you as close as possible and observe how things are done then give them a try (practice day is great for this). personally as a mentor and previous coach i like it much better when there are 4 students out there and all you help with is the pre game strategy (but thats just me)

hope this helps

[JamesCH95]

Keep on drive coach and one drive team. That team needs to develope the communication skills and team dynamics together, and they need all the mathes to do it. If you swap out one or more people on the drive team it will disrupt any kind of synergy that the team develops.

[KenWittlief]

from my experience its best to have one adult be responsible for the on-field team, to work with them planning strategy and team structure

to establish goals and rules for each match, and then review the match afterwards to see how things went, from the field-teams persective and from the coach's perspective.

Its also good to have meetings for the entire team. You will have people watching matches all day, scouts running around, so its good to sit down on thursday and friday night and go over everthing thats happend that day, and to make your game plan for the next day.

to answer your question directly, team structure and organization is very important. You cant have individuals telling others what to do throughout the event, it will be chaos.

At the events we have a well defined tree. The field coach (the person standing with the drivers and HP on the field) is THE person who plays the game. For our team this has been a student for the last few years, but it could be a mentor.

We see the field coach as the captain on the field. the captain is able to watch the whole field, and calls the plays during the match (go get that object, place it on that goal, go block that robot, get back in the end-zone...) The drivers do what the captain/coach tells them, keeping their attention on the bot.

the field-coach / captain also works with a strategy coach, usually an adult on our team, who watches the match from the sideline, and helps direct the field team between matches.

the pit crew answers only to the field team, specifically the captain/coach. They are the ones using the bot on the field, so no-one else should be telling the pit crew to change or modify the robot - the drivers are the ones who tell the pit crew "this is what we need, this is what we want out there".

Ive seen the chaos approach, where an engineer tells the pit crew to start changing things, where a teacher or parent gets an idea and wants to mod the robot, where students start changing things on their own - also when random members of the overall team start telling the drivers or HP what to do in the next match. You cant play any other sport that way, and you certainly cant do a regional that way.

Thats been our approach, structure and organization are critical.

[Bcahn836]

What we do is have a mentor/ drive team pow wow, and we discuss what we all feel is important in the strategy of the game. Before each match the human player the robot driver and myself talk to our scouting team to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents and allies. then the drive team and I decide on what needs to be done. we then run it by our lead mentor and driver coach to get their input and ideas, additionally we get information about things different sub teams wants the drive team to check or use, like programming. Then we go and talk to our allies about how we want to play the following match.



But while driving. . .
From a drivers stand point we like coaches we can work well with and can communicate well with. I personally don't like coaches yelling in my ear telling me what to do, however i do like to be posted on the score and what the other teams are doing are the disabled are they scoring big or are they coming for us. Just general reminders and precautions.

[Jay TenBrink]

We have tried both the single team and alternating teams:

1) Two drive teams each with their own field coach: This provides more people with the opportunity to be out there on the field. This can also ensure that back-ups are available in case someone is ill, etc. The biggest down side is lack of continuity on the field (confuses judges, partners, etc.) This also results in less experienced drivers and coaches.

2) One drive team with the same coach every time: We have found this to be the best way. Other drivers can still get a chance to drive in off season events, so there is still a time and place to develop driving skills for new drivers. Ditto for those who would like to be the field coach.

Jay

[Allison K]

226 has one coach and one drive team (well one main, we do have a back-up in the event of a disaster). I'm the coach this year and it's my first year coaching. I only have one regionals experience so far, but I think it must be advantageous to keep the same coach. I know it took me me one or two matches to figure out the coaching thing, and then another one of two to get all four of us (me, two drivers, and human player) all working together and performing our best. I think if we were switching people in and out all of the time it would disrupt the flow of things. Our previous coach had been it for three years (It really helped me that he was coaching me off the field, training me).

[KTorak]

A few years ago we had like 3 different drive teams and a mentor as our coach. We now have only 1 drive team and a student coach (who's usually a good friend of the driver(s). This system seems to work really well, heck, we got to GLR finals :-D .

[Ian Curtis]

We have a single drive team and a single student coach. Mentors make sure that things get done in the pit but they stay back and let the the students run the show on the field.

[Kit Gerhart]

While we rotated coaches during our first regional one or two years when I was with Team 45, normally we used one coach (or set of coaches back when there were two on the field) as does my present team. To me, having the same drive team, including coach, is the best way to evolve into a well functioning unit.

This year at Team 233 we had a little different arrangement in that I was basically the "pre-competition coach," while Andy Bradley is the field coach. My job was to help prospective drivers and operators build their skills using last year's robot, and to encourage some "friendly competition" within our group. Also, with some input from other team members, it was my job to test and select our drivers and human players. Meanwhile, Andy was busy with programming.

While I had some reservations about picking a drive team and then "turning them over" to Andy, things seem to be working out for us, and I think what we did makes sense. The field coach needs to be a good strategist and, very importantly, a good communicator. That is an area where Andy is better than I am. In my function of turning video game expects into robot operators, my knowledge of how our sometimes quirky robots behave, along with my being a fairly good driver/operator myself, seemed to be useful.

[Wayne C.]

Originally Posted by chakorules

Hello everyone,

I have a coaching question.

So this year and last year are very different. I have the wonderful support of eight more engineers that most of them will be attending this year’s regional.

Typically do you let multiple coaches lead your team?

So what do other teams do? Multi coaches or one coach?

First- I'll bet that most of the kids reading this would LOVE to have the support of 9 engineers helping their team. Most teams have trouble even finding one.

But should they all be on the field as coaches? Hmm.

That depends on your reason for playing and motivations.
It is a good idea for all the adults involved to at least get a taste of what it is like to be in the grips of the actual competition on the field. Few people can relate to the pressure and fast pace. It certainly is a lesson for anybody who thinks it's easy.

But in dealing with a team of kids in anything consistency is what helps them build their confidence. Mixed calls will slow down their growth and their game play might suffer.

I'd think of what the team needs now. Maybe those engineers need that little extra to really get them addicted to FIRST and a trip or two to the field would make the difference. Maybe your kids are experienced enough to deal with the adults in any situation. They'll know.

In my book the team building experience of the kids training the engineers in the operations on the field would be invaluable. It might not get a trophy but you win far more in the long run.


WC

[Mark Pettit]

We have had success using a single driver. multiple drivers, an adult coach, and student coaches.
It depends on where your team is experience-wise if you ask me.
This year, I went in as coach until my team president told me he wanted a classmate to coach on the field.
After a couple of matches, he said that he wanted me back out there so I became the "strategist" for the rest of the competition.
I typically trust the team leaders to make the call in this manner.
In Triple Play, there are enough teams that do not understand the game well enough to make it an easy task to strategize effectively so it is good to have someone out there to assert what he/she thinks needs to take place during the round.