SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

This year, I was able to get the SPAM scouting database in a usable form earlier than usual.

You can find the files here : http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2632?

The poor mans scouting system is for teams that don't have the luxury of owning a bunch of laptops, or tablets, or whatever electronic widgits are available these days.

You only need a laptop during the event, and you will need to print out some scouting sheets and strategy sheets before hand.

The instructions in the spreadsheet are fairly thorough, but if there is something you don't quite get, let me know.

System requirements are any laptop with Windows and MSOffice. You will need Excel, and Publisher. I have not checked it out on Mac's. But if you have one with a Windows emulator, then it should work.

It does run under Office '07, but it is easier to use under Office '03.

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

This is AWESOME and perfect for our team! Thank you so much!! :)
BTW: It also works in Office 2010

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

Thanks Warren - saves me the trouble of asking you for it yet again.

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

To anyone who is planning on trying out the Poor Man's Scouting system at a week one event.......

Please give me some feedback. What worked, what didn't work, was there an aspect of the game that I overlooked, and most importantly what coefficiencts worked best for the Effective Score calculation.

Dillard, I'm counting on you bud.

If any of you would be willing to send me a copy of the database with all of the match data in it, I would appreciate it.

PM me if you are able to send it, I'll give you my regular email address.

Thanks, in advance.

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

I've posted a PDF version of the scouting sheet for those who do not have MSPublisher.

I guess I should have thought of that a week ago. :rolleyes:

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

We're planning on using it, and I've already got your regular email addresses. We'll probably have a training session next week so I may call you for clarification of anything.

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

After entering the team list, which takes a long time, i got an error...

I clicked on "Set up Team Sheets & Summary"

I get this

Run-Time Error '1004':

Cannont Rename a sheet as another sheet, a referenced object library or workbook referenced by Visual Basic.

So i hit debug... it high lights this line

Sheets("Team Template (2)").Name = TeamNumber


Any thoughts?

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

Never mind i fixed the problem

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

This is just another great reason to use CD.
Thanks!:)

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

tomy,

Sorry I wasn't able to get on sooner. I was up in Orlando for the regional.

Was the problem that you had the result of having the same team number twice?

I've done that before and got the same message.

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

OK, time to bump this and give a little insight as to how SPAM got 25 and 16 on their alliance. First of all, if your team hasn't done detailed scouting before, you need to download this file and see how SPAM does it - they have a good system that has taken years to develop and it really works. The cards and the data haven't changed much, but the ranking algorithms have.

Friday night going through the data, teams were ranked top to bottom with an OPR-like metric, based on observing individual teams not alliance scores from the website and assigning weight to coopertition bridge, accounting for attempts, etc. I don't remember the exact order, but 33, 25, 180 (yes, they rank themselves) and 148 were top 4; 16 was well down the list. We then put next to each team number if they were long or wide, and if they had ever triple balanced. We went down the list and resorted, giving weight to wide TB's but comparing to the other teams above them on the list. First pick went to the best available on the list, team 25 (a long bot), so our next choice had to be a wide bot in order to triple balance. Here's where the qualitative data trumps the quantitative data. We knew Bomb Squad was having problems, but we kept asking ourselves, if they start working do we really want to be against them? To make it to and through Einstein, you need to be robust and proven, and Bomb Squad had been there. It was a high risk, high payoff decision and it fit in with our match strategy for starvation. We were stunned that they were still available, and elated that we got them.

Re: SPAM "Poor Man's" Scouting System
 

Thanks for bumping this. I've never seen SPAM's scouting system, and looking for a way to do one myself this looks like a great resource. I highly suggest this to teams who are new to scouting, and need a good example.