What does everyone think of the 1 coach rule? I’ve heard rumors that FIRST instated it because of a select few adult coaches who were overbearing & intimidated the students. But does this new rule solve the problem? Now instead of having 2 coaches, 1 who is out of control and 1 who no one objects to, we’ll be left with the out of control coach. I don’t think the rule solves anything, and has the potential to hurt teams’ in-match strategies. It’s always good to have a second coach back there concentrating strictly on the score and what the next move should be.
Anyone else have opinions?
I have opinions on the subject, but as always, I’ll save my final opinion for a few months down the line after I’ve seen some competitions.
the only way it will affect us is that we will have 1 less student that gets to up there. our team always operated with 1 adult and 4 students. we usually used the spot for the other coach for non-drivers and non-human players to experience the competition. so, the coach part doesn’t affect us but now we won’t have as many people get to experience the competition.
The students are to be setting the stradegy for the match and the fewer ‘adult’ interference the better. This will also keep the field less crowded(sp?).
This is one of those cases where I disagree with the ruling, but others have differring opinions that are valid.
To my mind, last year’s game set up a nightmare negotiation process that was designed to bring out the worst in people (students and adults alike). It was like tossing matches into piles of leaves and wondering why all these fires are breaking out.
The fix was not to reduce the the number of adults (who can sometimes behave badly but are not more likely to than students) but to fix this process that brought out the worst in basically good people (which this year’s game has in fact done).
The loss of 2 coaches per alliance means more stress on the rest of the group to real-time track what the score is and what is needed to win. The win-by-1 aspect of the game is critical like it was in 2000 qualifying rounds. Of course in eliminations this is a moot point, unless a rule change happens…
In the qualifying rounds, one or both of the human players in the alliance will need to step up and fill this void. HP’s now need to become more than just shooters and loaders.
Being a rookie team I didn’t see anything wrong with the 1 mentor rule. We hadn’t really been planning on having any adults on the floor at all, although now that we know we can, it might be enjoyable to have one of our fun mentors down there that we all get along with. Are we allowed to go with 4 students though, if we desire, so long as they are designated as not allowed to touch the balls beforehand? I thought the competition was supposed to be as much student-run as possible - this is a learning experience for the students, shouldn’t it be us kids that do the strategizing and negotiating (heck, I trust the instincts of most younger people at coming up with strategies and counting quickly more so than any of the adults I know).
Please people, don’t turn this into a student vs adult coach thread, that was not the point of my post. The rule change by FIRST was not “get rid of an adult coach.” It was “there shall only be 1 coach.” My point is that by removing the extra coach (student or adult based on the specific team), everyone else in the driver’s box must do more work. I think the ability to have a coach dedicated to watching the score is a big bonus, and teams won’t have that chance this year.
I think it is ok for students to be coaches, but I also feel that adults should be allowed to be drivers and operators if they can win a team’s competition for the positions. Why does FIRST have all this age descrimination.
*Originally posted by Kit Gerhart *
**I think it is ok for students to be coaches, but I also feel that adults should be allowed to be drivers and operators if they can win a team’s competition for the positions. Why does FIRST have all this age descrimination. **
Don’t forget that FIRST is, and always has been, for the students. When you look at the FIRST Robotics Competition as a whole, there is very little definition of what must be done by students, and what may be done by the adult mentors. If FIRST was to allow the adult mentors to be the actual robot drivers and/or human player(currently the only parts of the entire competition which say that they MUST be done by the students, unless you look at things such as the animation), it would be possible to have a team with NO students taking part, which would eliminate the whole purpose of the competition. I personally do not look at this as “discrimination,” but rather a way for FIRST to ensure that teams are working toward the goals of the program as a whole.
I don’t like the rule change…be it adult or student is not my issue I think that this game/year was not the year to make this change…it is going to require that 2 people be involved in the on field scoring/strategy so that the driver/operators can concentrate on the task at hand. This years game is very intensive with regard to scoring and keeping track of opponent alliances…I think it would be better served with 2 people (student or adult) watching these aspects
Well, I don’t really know the motivation of FIRST planners that determined 4 people would be the rule and not 5. But, in my opinion it doesn’t really matter - if we had been playing the previous 11 years with 4 we would have figured out how to divy up the tasks at hand, wouldn’t we? So instead of trying to decide better or worse, lets face it we only get to have 4 people (notice there is no reference to student or adult) - anyways, why not discuss “what the 4 will do” - The decision has been made, NOW how do you respond? This also is a challenge that we can surprise Dean and Woody with by showing them - it is possible to play the game, have fun, and still get the tasks completed. Nobody said that figuring out gear ratios and speed curves was the ONLY thing that would make your brain hurt to figure out!
