I am a coach, and I have been struggling to find things for my drivers to do while my builders and coders are working. Any advice would be helpful.
1 Like
Hello @Annalysa_Malaise and welcome to the community! 
When I coached a VRC team and any of the students on the team were looking for things to do, I always recommended the following:
-
Organize: this can be anything from cleaning the work area to coming up with a better organization solutions for parts. I have found from experience that some of the students (builder, coder, or driver) tend to get things a little messy while working
I had to remind my kids multiple days a week to clean up and organize things. -
Contribute to the Engineering Notebook: this is something that I think teams often just lay on one person, but truly it’s a team effort. Documenting a process or writing down ideas can be something each person on the team contributes to. It’s also a great way to ensure everyone on the team is being held accountable and not all falling on one team member. There’s some really good information here at notebooks.vex.com.
-
Research: this is one of my favorites. I would always tell my kids to look up other designs or driving strategies on YouTube or the VEX Forum to bring back to the team for discussion. It’s a great way for the kids to get different perspectives and also try out new ideas that they might not have known existed prior. The research doesn’t have to only be about engineering designs or driving, it can also be different coding techniques. I think it’s helpful to ask different team members to check out different ideas such as engineering/coding/driving so that drivers are not always solely focused on driving, engineers are not only focused on building, but instead they’re working together as a team to cover all of these topics. In my experience, having kids even just look at ideas for another role helps them become better problem solvers and put themselves in another team member’s shoes. There’s some great videos of teams being interviewed about these topics at engineering.vex.com and coding.vex.com.
Let me know if any of these ideas are helpful! @Alaina_Caulkett and I co-coached our team, maybe she has some additional ideas
1 Like
You have a really exhaustive list, Lauren! But I can expand on research a bit.
There’s been a handful of signature events now like Mall of America and Haunted. So there are a myriad of videos now from high visibility events. This is a great opportunity to develop strategy. How did team A work with their alliance during the match? What points were they going for?
Beyond strategy, it is really important to work on communication! Give them exercises like directing someone blindfolded to complete a task, etc. Being a clear communicator with team members will help them in the pressure of a competition to talk to one another.
Hope this helps!
1 Like
They can practice driving! If you have a windows machine, check out xRC simulator. It is a Spin Up video game. The kids can come up with strategies, document them in their notebook then test them on the simulator. Se what works most efficient, when they find their way have them document why. Another thing they can do in XRC simulator is change button configurations, have them test those, then when the robot is ready they can try to program them. For example: flywheel button on L1 then fire on R1, or testing the intake as a hold pressed button VS toggle.
