Coaching question

[Collmandoman]

What exactly does your coach do? I knwo this is a broad question but pls answer as easily as possible.
Do you tell which to cap.. do you tell them how to drive.. do you talk to the other coaches.. do you tell them to get to point X .. do you get a headache when they apprach the loading zone.. do they even listen under the intensity of the moment.. what works best.. what works worst..

how experienced was your coach.. or does it even matter -- does the atmosphere just make you make the rigth choices

because I havn't kept up much with the regionals and havn't really thought about strategy until now.. but some still want me to be coach. I think it would be really fun, but I'd have a lot of responsibilty.. can I still be a good coach? What exactly should I learn and do, pls be specific it woudl help me and the team out alot if I'm chosen

thx again

[kevin.li.rit]

I guess you should help your drivers stick with a predetermined strategy. With another set of eyes you can help them out by telling them to recap a goal or play some defence depending on what actions would help you win the match.

It's easy to lose track of time, so you could keep your drivers aware of that. Communication during the match should probably be done by the coach.

[Bharat Nain]

A good coach is actually playing the game, the drivers are just following his voice commands. See, the drivers need to concentrate on doing their job[handling tetras, playing defense] well. A good coach would direct every step of theirs[The What].

Ex.
"Auto loading zone, OK now cap the center goal, stop that team from capping our row"

He needs to watch out for everything on the field. Since the drivers are keeping an eye on the robot, he doesn't necessarily have to. He should probably watch for the rows being capped, and what the opponents are getting to.

Does it take experience? Yes. A rookie drive team, if well trained their first year will probably do amazing their second year. It takes some practice.

Make sure your voice is clear too. Keep cough drops handy. If the drivers don't hear you, they don't do what you say.

And the golden statement which has been said a million times on CD: Keep yourself calm no matter what. Learn to work under pressure. If not you lose control, and probably lose your match.

Good luck,
-Bharat

[KTorak]

A coach is there to be the drivers eyes in my opinion. The drivers are really only focused on what they are capping and something in the immediate area. The coach is there to see land event, like if the other alliance takes over one of our goals we owned, then he points in the direction to re cap it and what not. He also gives us other directions like if we're off on our allignment and such. One of the biggest things he can do is see the best way to get a row (or destory the other alliances row) and such becuase he can walk around behind us. The drivers should listen to their coach (we try out best), all drivers should listen to their coaches commands though.

[Josh Fritsch]

I think that it is the coaches job to be "playing the game" I guess you could say. They need to be the ones that can formulate strategies on the fly while the drivers are doing something else. The coach should tell the drivers WHAT to do on the field, but not HOW to do it. The drivers need to be capable enough to know the limits of their robot. They need to know how to maneuverer around other robots and get into scoring position. This way the coach can be looking around the field deciding what to do next while the drivers are completing the current task. I found out that many coaches have a different approach to how they coach out on the field, but I think that a lot of it depends on the students and how they react to certain things.

[Collmandoman]

Originally Posted by Josh Fritsch

I think that it is the coaches job to be "playing the game" I guess you could say. They need to be the ones that can formulate strategies on the fly while the drivers are doing something else. The coach should tell the drivers WHAT to do on the field, but not HOW to do it. The drivers need to be capable enough to know the limits of their robot. They need to know how to maneuverer around other robots and get into scoring position. This way the coach can be looking around the field deciding what to do next while the drivers are completing the current task. I found out that many coaches have a different approach to how they coach out on the field, but I think that a lot of it depends on the students and how they react to certain things.

see I seem to agree completly with you ~ but a few want that extra hand holding - which I'm not saying is bad.. because they will perform better.. but with everything going on.. it seems not being able to strategize is a HUGE problem~
My ideal sistuation would be to tell them where to go IE loading zone to pick up a tetra.. and where to place it after it is grabbed... because the strategy changes every second - but not tell them how to do so.. if a robot is impeding getting to a goal.. they should be able to get without "go left, go right, right again" or alteast in my opinion -- just like a sports coach doesn't tell a player how to shoot or throw a ball or whatnot during a game.. that is for practice.. right?

[Lisa Perez]

In addition to what everyone else has said, the coach has to be able to communicate with the other coaches throughout the game and especially if there is a change in the match strategy. If there is no communication between coaches, that somewhat defeats the purpose of alliances.

As for amount of experience, it takes none. You gotta make sure that you keep your eyes on the field, though. That part of it is integral to how the match turns out. Also, make sure your driver or operator hears you when you're giving an order - sometimes they get caught up in the adrenaline of the match and do not hear what anyone is saying

Even though everyone should know the match rules and scoring inside out, the coach for sure should.

Good luck!

[Allison K]

Off the field

-Stay calm.
-Seek out alliance partners drive team (including coach) and create a plan for each match
-Debriefing after each match to talk about anything that went wrong (communication, the robot, etc.) so that we can fix it for the next match. (This was my first year as coach, so I found this particularily helpful, as we also got opinioins from our previous coach). We also talked about the things we think that went well, so we can try to duplicate them.

On the field

-Stay calm.
-Tell the drivers step by step what they need to do (Ex - Far auto loader the center goal, then far human player)
-Watch the other robots on the field
-Communicate with the other coaches (I always found this easier when we had a strategy meeting beforehand, because it was during that time that we figured out who was better with human loader or auto loader, and which ones which team would use, so that we didn't get in each others way)

[StephLee]

I think what the coach does depends a lot on their drive team.

What I did was watch for any strategic openings(like breaking or making rows), keep track of time, and talk to the other coaches. If I saw something important, I told the drivers to go to it. I didn't play the game for them.

I also signaled the human player to run once we were set, to avoid not being in the loading zone. Avoiding penalties was one of my big jobs. That and keeping the drivers calm on and off the field.

The driver shouldn't be trained to listen to 'orders' from the coach, per se. Our driver saw something I(and everyone else) missed completely in the finals: a tetra of ours that wasn't quite on. He didn't hesitate, and went straight for it, fully capping it and helping to break a row.

The biggest piece of advice I would have would be don't be afraid to get your drivers' attention. It won't kill them to be hit over the head once or twice if they can't hear you, as our driver told me himself.

Make sure you coordinate with the other coaches, too.

Good luck!!

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

A good coach is actually playing the game, the drivers are just following his voice commands. See, the drivers need to concentrate on doing their job[handling tetras, playing defense] well. A good coach would direct every step of theirs[The What].

Personally, I think it should be the opposite. A good drive team shouldn't have to be "babysitted" by their coach. Maybe early in the season once things are getting started you could get away with that, but as time goes on, teams get better. After several matches or an entire regional, your drivers should know that once they cap they go back to the human player station or auto loader and make sure that the goals you decided before the match need to be focused on are capped.

Eventually they should do it on their own.

Once the drive team has it under control what they need to do, that frees up the coach to keep an eye on the opponents, the partners, the field and most importantly, the clock. Really, the only time the coach should have to come into play and direct them is when something unexpected happens (like a team sneaks down into your area and breaks up your home row, something on your robot breaks, or something happens to your alliance partner) or if you need to drop everything and get back to your starting area for that 10 bonus points.

Anyway....to sum it up, once your drive team gets what they do down pat, the coach should shift his attention away from the drivers doing their job and more towards just focusing on the entire field.....that's how you win big matches.

[StephLee]

Originally Posted by D.J. Fluck

Personally, I think it should be the opposite. A good drive team shouldn't have to be "babysitted" by their coach. Maybe early in the season once things are getting started you could get away with that, but as time goes on, teams get better. After several matches or an entire regional, your drivers should know that once they cap they go back to the human player station or auto loader and make sure that the goals you decided before the match need to be focused on are capped.

Eventually they should do it on their own.

Once the drive team has it under control what they need to do, that frees up the coach to keep an eye on the opponents, the partners, the field and most importantly, the clock. Really, the only time the coach should have to come into play and direct them is when something unexpected happens (like a team sneaks down into your area and breaks up your home row, something on your robot breaks, or something happens to your alliance partner) or if you need to drop everything and get back to your starting area for that 10 bonus points.

Anyway....to sum it up, once your drive team gets what they do down pat, the coach should shift his attention away from the drivers doing their job and more towards just focusing on the entire field.....that's how you win big matches.

Exactly what I was trying to say in my earlier post. I just couldn't say it that well...

[Collmandoman]

Everybody thanks for your input =)

[DarkJedi613]

Well, I'm our coach this year and I'm a "rookie coach" - we've never had a student do it before. I took a different approach from the mentors who had done it. My approach is "do this, I don't care how you do it, just do it" as in, "Put the tetra on that oints towards back right goal:" but I'm not gonna be like "Drive forward, turn left, extend the arm" - I do however do this when I notice my drivers are getting nervous. or my perspective is better than theirs.

Overall, I do the more strategic part of the game, not always even watching my team but seeing where they'll be making the next move.

And yes I talk to the other coaches, especially around 20 seconds we decide if we want to get back or not. Occasionally I'll tell other coaches what goal we're getting if I think they're going to go for it also.

Hope that helps!

[danield710]

our coach this year mainly just gave us more eyes on the field, because when your driving the robot most of the time u have tunnel vision and all ur lookin at is ur robot and anything else thats close to it, so our coach would tell us wat goals to cap and where to go on the field, if to go to autoload or the human player loading station, etc.

[Steph]

Being coach seems to be the easiest job to those not doing it, yet one of the most difficult to those who do. You have to keep calm, because if you aren't, your drivers won't be either. I leave it open to the drivers to tell me how much or little input they'd like, and so far it seems that they like me to tell them what tetra to get, and where to put it for each and every one. I never tell then how to do it however. If I say "Go load from the autoloader" I leave it up to them to choose which one to go to. Myself and our HP do all of the strategy before a match, because the drivers are working on the robot, and have a brief meeting for 5 minutes or so before we go on to explain our plans to them, get their input, and make changes when needed. I mainly focus on our drivers during the match, but always keep an ear out for other coaches, and never hesitate to talk to them when needed. So far things are working well, and I hope they stay that way :-)