What exactly is coaching?

After working with the nanites for three years, I came to realize coaching is simply make the kids realize they can accomplish more than what they have done. Coaching is asking questions at the time the kids can receive them positively and act on them with their time and resource constraints. It is okay to set a high expectation but the kids should feel that it is reachable.

For example, we settled for 385 points for the state championship this year as the robot would not be capable for the max 400 points. Several kids feel that 385 points should be reachable. Once a realistic goal is agreed by the team members, we need to muster the resources we have through team work and allow the kids to step up to fill the needed roles, e.g. a team spokesperson that is familiar with the overall directions for the team, programmers that can backup each other, builders and testers that can put the robots on the tournament table. We need the kids to get the programs and robots to work reliably within the two and half minutes allocated. That is definitely not a small task in the next two weeks before the state championship.

In summary, coaching is simply setting a a reasonably callenging goal for the team and let the team react to it, acheive the goal, and feel good about fulfilling the potential for the team.