Hello all, I’m the parent of a middle schooler doing VEX IQ through a private studio and I’m disappointed to say that my child is having a miserable time. I can hear the coaches interacting with the students from the waiting area and I feel that the lead coach is unnecessarily harsh with the students. My kid is also complaining about adults micromanaging the build, to the point of talking over the students and taking the bot away from them to fix or change. They were told to copy an idea for a lift mechanism from a YouTube video and were struggling to figure out how to do it, rather than just come up with their own solution or version. Everyone on the team is new to VEX this year and don’t have a lot of design experience. They have spent the vast majority of the season endlessly building and rebuilding, often with the same coach swooping in and taking over, and almost no time with driving practice, and now my kid is being expected to do the autonomous code but there’s no time to test it because the bot is still being tinkered with. I feel terrible because I talked this up like it was going to be a great experience and now it’s all backfired. I don’t really have the financial resources to branch out on my own here, plus I work in the same organization that runs the VEX program so it puts me in a rather awkward position.
For coaches and parents, how DO you inspire and guide students without crossing the line? And what if anything can I do for my kid to convince him that this isn’t normal and he might have a better experience somewhere else?
I feel for you and your child. I run a small Vex academy in NC and understand both the coach’s position and the children’s position in this situation. I would encourage you to have an open discussion with the coach. Be sure to cover the following points.
VEX is a student centric activity. The definition of this is clearly stated in rules G2 and G4.
Your child’s frustration in detail. I can imagen that the coach is also frustrated and needs to be reassured that a poor performing team is something all coaches deal with. A coach is responsible for empowering a team to succussed. Successes is measured many ways in sports. Be sure to explain what your definition is successes is.
That you and child believe in this activity and want to work with you (the coach) to improve the overall performance of the team. After all there is only one winer in a competition but there are many leaners.
This is just my humble opinion based on your post. I hope it helps. Best wishes.
Thank you. I actually do hope it’s a rare issue because I would hate for this kind of thing to be widespread. I am going to research other groups in our area but my kid may be reluctant to try again.
Thank you, I really appreciate this. I have talked to the coach previously but I think this way of putting it would be really helpful. I know the coach is indeed frustrated and feels that the students are not taking things seriously, but also there are just too many teams and the assistant coaching staff has not been consistent, so they have not been able to provide the support the newer students need.
I also know my kid is not blameless and has a tendency to goof off or withdraw when things get uncomfortable. That has made it easy for concerns to get dismissed as immaturity or not caring enough or entitlement. However, the coach’s aggressive way of “motivating” the students really doesn’t work because it just encourages more withdrawal and more reluctance to push through.
Again, thank you. If my kid had had you as a coach I am sure this experience would have been a lot more successful.
You didn’t talk about any teaching they got about assembly, etc. With brand new roboteers it’s pretty normal to have them build one of the VEX sample robots to learn build skills. Some places will have them build part of an online design.
But this doesn’t mean that they will be successful. I can see the mentor stepping in to help with the sticky bits. All mentors have different styles when they do that.
This is often a problem across the season getting time to test code out. I am a little surprised that someone new has been assigned to do the code by themselves.
The season has 6 weeks to go, there is time to go to pull things around.
If you are part of the organization, then you should be able to talk to the mentor and the leadership about this. They may not know of your concerns or your roboteers concerns. The most important thing you can do now is talk to them, get your concerns raised and get a plan from them. Make sure that the plan has a followup date to see what progress has been made.
Thank you. I agree, there is still time to turn things around, though as far as I’m aware they are only signed up to participate in one more event coming up very soon and so the time pressure is on.
It’s not that I think the approach to building the bot was entirely wrong. The issue was more that instead of learning to understand what they were doing or why, they were just going through the motions. The thinking and understanding was being done either by the inventors of the bots or by the adult doing the troubleshooting. Theoretically they would learn from the act of working on it, picking up concepts as they go. I should also note they aren’t the only team struggling to have a finished bot, even some of the returning students are struggling.
You’re all correct in that I need to talk to the coach and leadership despite the awkwardness it might cause at work. I personally know other families who have quit the program or declined to sign kids up because of the teaching style and/or a bad experience, and I think it could end up hurting our entire organization in the long run. Thanks again!
This years robot is complicated. The launcher / ratchet part is tricky, I had problems with it when I built it.
For teams I’ve recently starting building “speed bases”, it’s six 2x20, 4 corner connectors, axels and motors. In about 20 minutes we can be ready for the brain. We drive it and then we take it apart. (The center also is sized to hold the big 12x12 flat plates they can build on.) They then get to build their own “different” base and drive that. So it’s build / learn cycle. But I also have a longer time to mess around with things like that.
Good luck with your chat! They may not know about the lost roboteers.
Quite a bit of this information sounds like another organization that I have heard many complaints about. Would you mind sharing its name, or at least if it has multiple locations or just one?
Some aspects of your child’s experience are normal. We mentor kids here in Virginia and they do goof off. In the alternative to talk to the coach, get involved and be in the room to learn how to do some of this yourself. It’s robotics, it’s a little complicated, but it’s a children’s program. You could lend a hand, different perspective, and perhaps, some patience. We welcome parents to be involved and take an active role. Maybe you can sit in the room and help them (and your son) figure some things out to get some version of bot to work. Good luck, I hope this doesn’t discourage your son in continuing his journey.
Thank you! I really like the idea of having the kids be able to get experience driving the bots interspersed with building their own. I will recommend that approach.
Thank you, I have tried to be present as much as possible and it definitely is better when I’m there. Unfortunately my work schedule overlaps with the classes so I’m not able to be present at the beginnings, and that usually sets the tone. By the time I’m dismissing my own class and going in, my kid is already fuming and the coach is frustrated. I have also tried taking my kid in separately to try to get the bot finished and work on the code, but that backfired recently when we were told he could not build or repair the bot without a “real” teacher present. I don’t even disagree with the policy, in principle, it’s just the condescending way that it was communicated to him, making him feel like all the extra time and effort he was putting in was not only not appreciated, but actually held against him. It was also the final straw for me because I had been advising him to take more initiative and push through his frustration, and it felt to him like he was being criticized for it. I really don’t see him continuing with this team past this season and I’m just hoping to salvage something so that it doesn’t put him off robotics, engineering, or team experiences of all kinds.
You say this is a private organization? Is it possible other parents are pressuring the coach for a win? It may also be that VEX just really isn’t for your child. I have had so many parents tell me how great robotics will be for their child because they just love building etc. But, they love those activities when they do them alone and struggle when they have to work as a team. We all have different things we enjoy.
The coding part is something I deal with every year. It never fails that the team with the kid who just wants to code takes forever to build their robot - or worse keeps rebuilding it rendering codes useless.
Wow, is it possible that they pay an organization about $500 per year per roboteer and they are OK with last place?
<< sarcsam >>
The largest robotics “pay for play” group near me started off as a “all roboteers get a chance”. It rapidity degraded to “win your way to worlds” with the introduction of sponsor dollars.
Welcome to “Money talks, aspirations walk”. I run a 60+ VEXIQ group that will never go to Worlds, but their education is second to none. There are lots of other groups that go “It’s not about the robot, it’s about collaboration, design, communication, planning, strategy, building, coding, sharing, compassion, teamwork”.
Thank you. I think the pressure is actually coming from the top. Most of the families (at least the ones I’ve interacted with) mostly want the students to have fun. Some of the students aren’t even planning to attend upcoming competitions. It’s the coaches and the organization itself that wants to have a good showing. My kid personally finds competitions stressful. But, maybe there would be more buy in and excitement if there were more of a sense of ownership. Winning when every aspect has been controlled by someone else doesn’t feel satisfying, and losing just confirms the struggle that the process has been all along. The most genuine excitement I saw at our last competition was when they were paired up with competent teams in matches that treated them with respect, and they managed to come up with a good strategy together.
The constant rebuilding and the shakiness of the building work, which has prevented the team from being able to develop their auton code, tells me that the kids aren’t experienced enough with the basics to be competition-ready. They don’t have a firm foundation of skills – which I think is why the coach keeps having to commandeer the bot to fix stuff. I have suggested to the org that we do a beginner level, that not every kid is ready for the pressures of competition or has the skills needed. I’m hoping they actually listen, because this is unsustainable.
Thank you, I agree. I think the planning has been lacking. Hopefully some lessons have been learned for the future. I’m not sure my kid will be willing to give it another go, but at least other people’s kids will benefit.
I like the approach you described. Is there a way to do VEX and just not focus on competitions at all? Do organizations run VEX programs that are more invention or challenge focused?