2012 Scouting Form

[wilsonmagnet]

Attached is a draft of a scouting form for 2012 Rebound Rumble.

Feedback welcome.

Paul Daniels, Rochester Engineering Centre.

[EricLeifermann]

I like the top half of the sheet. I don't like the ranking system at the bottom as its very subjective and its hard enough to track all the stuff you want to know at the top of the page for 1 robot let alone try and watch all 6 robots to find which one is the best in those 6 or 7 categories you have.

I like to have the ability to have 3-4 matches per team on one sheet of paper so you don't end up with 150+ sheets of paper to try and decipher usable info from. I attached something from a previous year to show what I am talking about. In the attached file if we did it right we could get 6 matches per 1 side of paper for 1 robot...

[Zephyr Foxworth]

A couple questions:
A: Would each form be for one individual to use per match?

The form is asking for the scout to pay attention to a lot of details at once. While the first half asks for details of a single robot, the ranking would have required watching all robots at once during the match.

B: What is the purpose of the Court Map in the middle of the page?

I would interpret it to be location and reason for fouls, but you may have another answer to this.

[Basel A]

I agree with Eric in that you could probably fit more than one team-match onto one sheet. We've always done 3 per sheet, but it depends on how much data you're collecting.

Remember that your sheet should include all information you'll need for match strategy and alliance selection - and nothing else. I'm not sure why you'd need to know how many shots were scored on the right and left baskets instead of just the middle row. You may want to include both shots made and shot attempted; that'll give you a better idea of robot effectiveness. There's other examples, but I think you get the point.

Finally, the bottom section is entirely subjective. Objective data is simply more reliable. The section depends both on the scouter's opinion and the quality of the other robots in the match, neither of which have anything to do with the robot in question. In the end, that data probably won't be very useful.

P.S. Note that fouls will not be announced to the crowd; only technical fouls and cards will be.

[Wizzard of Izz]

May I suggest Cowscout? www.cowscout.com

[Wizzard of Izz]

This might be of use to you.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=96313

[mynameislenni]

no

[the_zanman]

Hey, I really like the scouting sheet - reminds me of the one my team used last year.

If you have any Android devices though, you may want to consider this in addition to this well-formatted form
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101682

[Siri]

P.S. Note that fouls will not be announced to the crowd; only technical fouls and cards will be.Yes and no--fouls will be signaled to the crowd, but not discussed/announced afterwards. And of course the score will change, but only after the signal is given. You'll definitely know if you're looking, but I am a little worried about my scouts catching them while watching the robot. This is challenge enough as a coach, and I've met may coaches who miss such things.

Also, you'll only be "told" which rule the foul is on for the "most common" fouls. Our at least our best guess at the most common fouls. The rest will take some deduction on the part of the scouts. Something to consider depending on the experience/knowledge/attentiveness of your scouts.


With regards to the rest of the sheet, I have to agree about including more than one match. Also, while your top information is mostly good to have, the format will not necessarily be easy for the scouts. Consider a more compact but distinctive block that minimizes writing for simple questions. Scouts will tend to "memorize" the layout in order to fill things out faster, and the series of "nnnnn_____" makes things run together a little more than is necessary.

The bottom section is still highly subjective and would require cross-referencing with the other robots in the match in many cases. (And even in the act of cross-referencing, you don't learn a whole lot.) It also puts another huge burden on the scouts in watching the other robots in the match as well, which will likely impact data quality. If you want to know more, you could leave a comments section or some descriptive adjectives to circle for each. Still, remember this is only really useful if your scouting team does well with subjectivity (some do, most don't).

[XaulZan11]

I always try to make my team's scouting sheets extremely easy to pick up and understand how to fill it out. I have some difficultly with what goes in some of your blanks (for example: Autonomous, Teleoperated, Adj. Angle, bump, bridge...). Some other things I would include are the match number and a space for general comments.

[ChristopherSD]

Here's my in-game sheet.

6 matches per side.

:)

[Patrick Chiang]

We made a program for this. Attached screenshot.

Left dropdown box for allowing comparison of a team's autonomous vs. teleop / day 1 vs. day 2 / balance vs. shooting statistics. Right dropdown box allows sorting teams by 1 of the 23 possible options that we've implemented (Best middle basket shooter, best single balancer, most average points, most consistent team, best autonomous mode scorer...etc)

The current version (not on my computer) also has a grapher on the right that compares all the teams OR graphs a specific team's performance (also, another dropdown box to select from a number of options to compare by).

There will be a team of scouts (aka freshman and sophomores) going around and recording this stuff at the match. The recording sheet is very subjective and only about match data (which basket scored in which mode, total score, balancing...etc). (Our team's scouts subscribe to the belief that performance is key; a good looking robot in the pits =/= a good looking robot in the arena)

May release before competitions when we clean it up.

[wilsonmagnet]

Revised 2012 Scouting Form

[ChristopherSD]

We made a program for this. Attached screenshot.

Left dropdown box for allowing comparison of a team's autonomous vs. teleop / day 1 vs. day 2 / balance vs. shooting statistics. Right dropdown box allows sorting teams by 1 of the 23 possible options that we've implemented (Best middle basket shooter, best single balancer, most average points, most consistent team, best autonomous mode scorer...etc)

The current version (not on my computer) also has a grapher on the right that compares all the teams OR graphs a specific team's performance (also, another dropdown box to select from a number of options to compare by).

There will be a team of scouts (aka freshman and sophomores) going around and recording this stuff at the match. The recording sheet is very subjective and only about match data (which basket scored in which mode, total score, balancing...etc). (Our team's scouts subscribe to the belief that performance is key; a good looking robot in the pits =/= a good looking robot in the arena)

May release before competitions when we clean it up.

Please tell me this comes on Windows.

[EricLeifermann]

Why do you need to know where they take each shot? You want your scouters to be able to collect data fast and accurately. Having your scouters looking up and down from the field to the paper will decrease both. The less the scouters need to focus on the better the data you are going to get.

What you really want to know this year is

How many baskets scored
Any penalties
Did they balance on the bridge
Final score of match
did red or blue win
and a place for comments. Such as they only can only score while touching the fender, etc.

It doesn't matter what basket they score on. I am going to pick the robot that scores the most points. Do i want the robot who scores 100 balls on the low basket or the robot who scores 10 balls on the top basket?

[XaulZan11]

What you really want to know this year is

How many baskets scored
Any penalties
Did they balance on the bridge
Final score of match
did red or blue win
and a place for comments. Such as they only can only score while touching the fender, etc.

It doesn't matter what basket they score on. I am going to pick the robot that scores the most points. Do i want the robot who scores 100 balls on the low basket or the robot who scores 10 balls on the top basket?

Two things:
We never have had scouts record the result of the match as all the information is available online. I don't think we have ever even looked at the data, anyway.

How are you going to determine which robot scores the most points if you don't know what basket the scored on?

[EricLeifermann]

I like the score of the match and who won, especially this year when an 0-8 team can be ranked the same as a 8-0 team. The scores allows you to to see a correlation between each match, yes they are posted online but why look them up after the fact.

Knowing where they score is perfectly fine thing to track, but its not necessary. I say this because if they score 100 baskets in the bottom hoop its 100 points but 10 baskets in the top hoop is only 30. Yes there is a curve where the 1 or 2 pointers are worth less than the same amount of 3 pointers but if you know a team can score 10+ baskets who cares what hoop its in. Yes I understand that most teams aren't going to be able to score 10+ points so know where they do score is good. So there isn't a reason why you wouldn't track what basket they score in, im just saying its not the most important thing.

[Patrick Chiang]

Attached is latest version working on Windows 7. We're still working on cleaning it up. 3rd attachment shows the input form. I hope no one here is on team 306... :D No offense intended, it's just bogus data.

Please tell me this comes on Windows.

Yes. It doesn't use any platform-specific calls.

Why do you need to know where they take each shot? You want your scouters to be able to collect data fast and accurately. Having your scouters looking up and down from the field to the paper will decrease both. The less the scouters need to focus on the better the data you are going to get.

What you really want to know this year is

How many baskets scored
Any penalties
Did they balance on the bridge
Final score of match
did red or blue win
and a place for comments. Such as they only can only score while touching the fender, etc.

It doesn't matter what basket they score on. I am going to pick the robot that scores the most points. Do i want the robot who scores 100 balls on the low basket or the robot who scores 10 balls on the top basket?

See, we have 6+ people watching each game and it will be fairly easy for them to record the baskets scored with our scouting program. It's not like they're going to be doing anything more important anyway.

Also, if you just calculated points, you would have to make the scouts do "*3" and "*2" or "*3+3" for baskets scored in upper baskets or in autonomous. Much easier if they can just click a button.

[Basel A]

Yes and no--fouls will be signaled to the crowd, but not discussed/announced afterwards. And of course the score will change, but only after the signal is given. You'll definitely know if you're looking, but I am a little worried about my scouts catching them while watching the robot. This is challenge enough as a coach, and I've met may coaches who miss such things.

Also, you'll only be "told" which rule the foul is on for the "most common" fouls. Our at least our best guess at the most common fouls. The rest will take some deduction on the part of the scouts. Something to consider depending on the experience/knowledge/attentiveness of your scouts.

Yes, you're right. I wasn't clear. I think the best practice would be to instruct scouts on recognising fouls themselves, but if that fails, they should be able to watch the referees, since this year's scoring isn't very difficult with only 3 balls per robot (at a time) and a relatively slow endgame.

[XaulZan11]

Knowing where they score is perfectly fine thing to track, but its not necessary. I say this because if they score 100 baskets in the bottom hoop its 100 points but 10 baskets in the top hoop is only 30.

In your example how do you know they scored 100 baskets in the bottom hoop or in the top hoop or some combination if your scouts don't record it? :confused:

[wilsonmagnet]

Next revision. Feedback still welcome.

[wilsonmagnet]

Revised version of 2012 Scouting Form with support documents:
ScoutReport - to report alliance and opponent data for upcoming matches
ScoutSummary - to summarize individual team data for alliance selection

[wilsonmagnet]

Attached are the Scouting Forms we will use next week at the Finger Lakes Regional. Go X-Cats!

[G-HousePirate]

Team 354 has come up with a general scouting sheets as an printable on and an excel one.

[Bill_B]

Have any of you practiced using your scouting ideas/sheets/systems while watching one or more of the re-cap videos of a match? I know that some videos are not well-suited for scoring practice because the cameraman has taken an interest in some particular action to the exclusion of field coverage.

I would think that if several of your scouts come up with close or identical results on your system, then you will know that you have a degree of consistency and utility in the data they are generating. If there are wide differences in how your scouts react to the same match, then you need to find out why that is. Either it's a form deficiency or your scouts are literally not on the same page in their understanding of what is required of them.