This is my first year in robotics and I got appointed coach because I know the rules. Do you guys have any pointers
Talk to your team members with previous game experience. Your team number indicates you should have some veterans on your team.
Make sure you meet with your alliance partners before each match. Do all you can to define a strategy. Know your partners and your opponents. Ask your scouts for advice - they have been watching the matches and could give you some insight in what to expect and how to play to your strengths, avoiding your areas of weakness. Keep a clear head and stay calm. Don’t get focused on watching just your own robot play. Be aware of as much of the field as possible. WATCH THE CLOCK !!! Encourage your drivers to go, go, go. Try to anticipate the actions of your opponents - particularly trapping and blocking.
Go over the results of each match with the drive team right after the match - Discuss what went right/wrong.
I could go on and on … but really, you will need to learn most of these type things through coaching matches. Make sure you get all the practice matches you can.
Good luck!
Have a standard “game plan” before each and every match. Be sure to talk to your alliance partners before the match, and see who you will be playing against. Once you are on the field and in a match be sure to communicate with your alliance partners and with your driver, operator, and human player. Keep an eye on the clock and know what has to happen when. MCahoon, gave some pretty good advice above. Good luck this season! 
Cass
These three are the biggest I can remember from my first year of coaching. Don’t worry about fluid strategies quite yet – just keep the bot running and performing to the plan. Don’t take unnecessary risks in quals.
Take time to relax throughout competition. Competition is even harder when your annoyed and aggrivated the entire time, trust me on this. Make note of how your drive team is doing and feeling, if they have a bad match and are really down about it you still need to review it but be careful about how you do it. This is one of those things where you want to be able to show where mistakes happened, but don’t blame your drivers it get’s even worse if they’re angry with you.
Make sure to take note of when you had good/bad matches and what the differences were why did you have that kind of match. Was it the actual condition of the robot or was it how you talked to your drivers or the objectives you laid out. Competition is about continual improvement and that is what your job is, take lessons from each match and learn from them. Also remember you are supposed to be the charismatic well put together calm person that your team can look to for inspiration and example. You are the end representation of your team that the entire crowd looks to.
P.S. you signed up for the most annoying aggrivating job there is on the team, so on behalf of the rest of us I would like to welcome you to the club.
Like everyone has already stated. Meet with your alliance partners before each match. Discuss who’s starting where and who might be playing defense.
Also encourage your drivers. Nothing is better to a driver than to have their coach say nice job after a match.
Also, spend as much time as you can to get to know the drivers. Practice with them before your regionals (If you have a practice bot).
Lastly, don’t get mad if the match doesn’t go in your favor because of a mistake by a driver. Talk to them nicely and encourage them to do better.
Hope this helps.
Always be an encouragement to your team and alliance teams, so this means don’t antagonize when things fail. Speak clearly and effectively to everyone.
Be the extra brain that reminds drivers of things they will forget in the heat of competition, like where to put the square and triangle tubes and how long they have to pin a robot before moving back. You’re a coach, don’t demand things of your drivers. Let the drivers gel and be one with the robot. You are the voice above them being the wondering eye they can’t be.
And always be sure to communicate with alliance partners who you worked well with that you enjoyed working with them. Give them a handshake and a good luck after each match, win or lose. There are some teams that select alliances based on good relationships they made during qualifying.
Once a match starts, your driver (most likely) will have his/her eyes on the robot at all times- watching every second of the robot’s movement and manipulation.
Your job is to absorb everything else and articulate it SUCCINCTLY to your driver. My main suggestion is don’t just watch your own robot. Back seat driving leads to tense moments. Relax, survey the field, speak loudly and clearly.
Just to add to the good suggestions you’ve received so far.
Basic strategies are good to set for your robot, but you never know what alliances are going to be like in the qualification rounds. Just because your robot is good at doing certain tasks doesn’t mean those tasks are the best role you can play in every match. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve played a defensive strategy with a very offensive robot just to make the alliance work.
Just my $.015
Don’t use gestures, your drivers won’t be looking at you.
All of the above plus.
As a previous student coach, I know that it can be awkward feeling like you’re bossing around your fellow team members. But remember a driver really wants to be bossed around, otherwise they feel like a blind sheep. They know what they’re doing, but they don’t know what to do next. This means don’t be timid about your instructions. Although, it’s best not to yell unless necessary (although with the loud music your pretty much doing this anyway). And you should NEVER yell at your drivers before or after a match, it honestly takes the fun out of driving.
Remember, your team chose you because you have a knack for good strategy. Therefore, trust your gut, even if it means detracting from the established strategy. For example, last year, if the strategy was for your team to sweep up the front and there were no balls in the front and none about to come, would you just have your drivers sit and wait? No. You would tell them to get to the mid zone, and fast. Once there was a fresh supply in the front, you tell them to book it on back. What’s not okay, however, is if in the middle of the match you decide that although you told your alliance you’d play front zone and then decide to go to the far zone and start playing defense.
From my perspective, the key to good coaching is to NOT watch your robot. The driver and operator are doing that. Your job is to keep track of the rest of the field - alliance partners and opponents alike. Too often I’ve seen coaches so intent on keeping their robot “safe” from defense that they hamper their alliance partners - either by getting in their way or forcing them into an unwanted situation (this happened a LOT in Lunacy).
As a former drive team coach, I agree with what has already been stated.
It is ideal to be able to adapt to certain situations.
- Yes it is good to have a base strategy before the start of a match, but if something goes terribly wrong, you must be able to change that game plan around in order to adapt to that unexpected happening.
- When discussing pre-match strategies, you have to look at everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. It would in your best interest to design an optimal game plan in order to capitalize on everyone’s strengths.
When you are on the field, you need to be able to deliver your commands very effectively. You need to state your commands loudly, detailed enough so your drivers know exactly what must be done, must simply enough that there is no confusion within the drive team during each intense match.
Honestly communication with you drives team is the most important thing. Pre and post match evaluations are the key to growing stronger as a team. Also, practice practice practice.
Things I have learned throughout the years:
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Be flexible - You may have a strategy ahead of time, but things never go according to plan. Be prepared ahead of time to switch up the plan if your partners / opponents do something unexpected.
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Do not focus on your own robot - You must be mindful of everyone else and give general commands to your drive team. They must communicate with each other regarding robot positioning.
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Watch the time - Many people say assign the time watching to a human player (analyst), but I say no way. Time is the most important thing we lose track of. Make it your responsibility to let your team know how much time is left. I use 1 minute, 30 seconds, and this year the 20 second mark as times that I shout out.
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Be decisive - Make a decision quickly and stick with it. If you make a mistake, then talk about it after the match.
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Make it clear that if you give a command that your drivers follow it even if they think it is wrong. If you made the wrong decision, then let them know they did the right thing by listening to you. My favorite story that shows what a driver is supposed to do is from 2008. The 1114 driver hurdled the wrong color ball … twice, because his coach told him too. He politely said, “hey, you know we are red, right?” and the coach adjusted his strategy accordingly, but the main thing is that the driver did exactly what his coach told him. There are no time for arguments on the field. Talk about it after.
That’s all for now, but if I think of more, then I will let you know.
Paul
When I was learning to be drive coach I remember that one of the biggest things that helped me was practice, practice, practice. I was always running trough possible matches in my head and (when we had time) on the field. This helped me get comfortable with the strategy and what to do on the competition field. The more I though about what I would say and do in various situations the better I was able to perform.
That’s what worked for me, I hope it works for you too; good luck!
I’m also in the same boat as the original poster (I am a senior, rules efficianado, likely operator or coach). Observing things from previous years (and being in the Alliance Station last year at Battlecry as Human Player), here’s what I can offer.
Don’t lose your cool, ever. Be calm, don’t get overexcited or down; it will kill your ability to help your alliance. I’d rather have a coach who stood there giving a command every 15 seconds or so, but was calm and collected over a coach who’s running at 300 miles an hour because they’re too excited. It’s the coach’s job to be the calm one in the Driver Station.
This doesn’t apply specifically to the Original Poster, but know the rules inside and out. You’re going to be watching the whole field, and subsequently you’re going to be noticing subtle things that can win you games if you know them. Knowing how an opponent gets a penalty, yellow card or even red card for their action is huge. Make sure you know when the opportunity to make a move that you’re safe in arrives, and also make sure your drivers aren’t making mistakes about rules.
Share. I’d play most of quals (personally) acting if the alliance I’m on is our final alliance pick. Keep the information flowing to your alliance, especially with the possibility of Analyst to Feeder signaling. If a team is thinking about not picking you, make sure it’s not poor communication that seals your fate.
The original intent of the specific statement did not endorse intentionally causing penalties. I updated my original post to reflect this.
Glad to clear up this misunderstanding then.
Listen to people like this. If he thinks of more while he’s standing next to you behind the glass, listen even more.
In other words, figure out who your alliance partners are, and defer to those who have more experience than you. That’s not to say you shouldn’t stick up for your position. But make sure you do so only after you have carefully considered what the other teams have to say.
And no matter what, don’t go off on your own strategy after you’ve agreed to an alliance strategy before the match.
And because you know the rules, be sure you don’t tell your team to break any! It happens - sometimes resulting in a red card to the team because they drove where the coach said to go.