Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

In regards to scouting, can teams who have successfully promoted themselves to scouting teams provide some feedback? What were teams looking for? Are there general qualities that are consistent year to year? This year we had a robot that scores in autonomous, scored during teleop, and balanced well. We made every match and didn't have technical difficulties. Because of losing matches like 30-17, 22-39, 31-13, and 29-27, we didn't make it to tournament matches. I'm looking to find out how teams effectively market for an alliance pick when they encounter a situation like this. Thank you in advance for your gracious help.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

It is hard for an alliance captain to remember each and every team (especially if they are a member of the drive team or do not have a strong scouting program.) So one general tip is to be distinctive - for example, Team 100 is a bunch of orange people with a decorated robot and the funny hats.

I haven't seen your robot/any matches, but I know that talking to potential alliance captains in the pits - preferably not 5 minutes before alliance selection - can get you noticed and remembered as well.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Thank you for your suggestions. I was thinking about creating a business card with our team name/number with all the important aspects of our robot that my students can hand out to all the teams. Maybe one team would bring it with them to the alliance selections. I would think consistently making matches would be important. Anything else year after year that teams would look for?

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

I don't know how other teams scout at a competition, but my team uses premarily performance on the field and a teams ability to fit into our intended strategy to select our alliance partners for the eliminations. Some times there are other intangibles at play, but those are mostly for tie breakers between two even teams.

Our scouts track every ball scored and every Coopertition and Alliance balance. We also, scout teams robots in the pit to determine wheel orientation, drive train type, build quality, etc...

We use that information to determine who the best scorers, both hybrid and teleop, and the best balancers. From there we make our list of the top 24 teams for the first pick and also a list of teams that fit our balancing strategy. During alliance selection we check off teams as they are selected and evaluate both lists to determine which available robots fit what we plan to do.

Without scouting the competition you were at, I can't say why you weren't picked for the tournament. But, one thing that is very unique in this game is teams specifically selecting teams to leave open the possibility of a triple balance.

In our first two events, this has been our #1 priority during alliance selection. At the Northville district this weekend, there was a group of about 10 robots that performed pretty well on the field, but had a "long" wheel base configuration that would not have fit with our strategy and first selection. If these teams had built a wide robot, they would have been in the tournament.

I'm not trying to say long robots cannot triple balance...it just more difficult and a risk we were not willing to take.

This years game is pretty unique that you can't just pick the next best team that is available. It makes alliance selection very interesting...sometimes confusing and other times frustrating.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

What Christopher (Randomness) said. A distinctive team/robot is always a very good thing to have. Team 100 is a prime example of this (Gotta get me one of those hats one day...)

To add on to this list, you want to make sure you are known by other teams. This is the huge social aspect of FIRST. Talk to teams often. Very often. Go around the pits every once in a while and talk to people. Make friends. Get to know the team members, and robots, very well. Getting on a FIRST name basis is also great, with team members, and the robot.

Not only does this make your team look good, but it also opens up so many opportunities. Working well in alliances, alliance selections, and even future team collaborations. 256 is currently in collaboration this year with 2489, because their team leader (BeltSanderRocks) and I became friends on CD, met at an offseason, and became good friends.

My final, and favorite tip: Be a strategist. Literally write down winning strategies and scenarios with you and other teams. I make a few hundred each year, and they become ever so helpful. To be able to go up to a team and say "We would work well together because of X, Y, and Z, and if we do 1, 2, and 3 we will win every match ever", is one of the largest selling points for teams. Don't tell someone you'd be good with them. Show them. Use statistics, logic (Nerds love logic), and even give match examples of you two working together if possible.


Great thread idea! I can't wait to learn from what everyone says!

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Be honest about your team's robot. An assessment like you gave in this thread, with more specific numbers (say, "we balanced X times in Y matches and didn't attempt the other Z times"), would probably be just about perfect. Or if there's a minor technical issue that you fixed and started performing better on the second day.

But if you stretch the truth, and the scouting team of the team you're talking to spots that, then they'll have the real data, and that can make you look bad to that team. That'll probably hurt your chances of getting picked.

And yes, be proactive. Stop by sometime Saturday morning--if you're on the bubble that might be enough to get you scouted one last time before picking.

The real fun trick is to talk to the rookie/sophomore teams who are in prime position to be picking--they may not quite know what they're doing, so they're the most likely to remember that "oh hey, team XYZ does this stuff, let's pick them". But, be careful with doing that... they may or may not be making a good choice to advance out of the quarterfinals.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Along with everything else that has been said, I'd like to add a few more points. Something that's in the back of my mind as an alliance captain is what team do I know is willing to work with me? As in, there are always teams out there who are pretty intent on doing their own thing. What makes an alliance exceptional is teamwork and the ability to work together and adapt, and I always want a partner that I know will stick to the strategy and be a good team player.

This goes along with making friends; I make it a point to network as much as possible throughout the course of the competition. The practice field is valuable too; 3456 practiced double balancing with several potentially high-ranked teams early in the competition and even practiced tripling.

Finally, accentuate what makes you unique. Tell teams why they want you over another equal or slightly better team. For us, we made sure to document that 1) we were one of only 3 teams in the competition to triple balance, 2) our driver has 3 prior years of experience, with 2 ending in driving at Championships, 3) we have a unique drive train that is extremely effective at balancing, and 4) we can clear balls from under the bridge effectively. Even though we scored very few balls the entire competition, we were picked three times during eliminations for our balancing! I think the main reason for this was our distinctiveness and networking. I'd recommend coming up with a list of unique traits that will make you stand out. The third pick robots, especially this year, can become extremely critical to success in eliminations.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

These are awesome ideas! Thanks for the feedback. We always stuck to the plan our alliance agreed upon but how are you able to quantify that to scouting teams? Also, sometimes that hurt us. One of our losses was 9 to 10 because we were doing the coopertition bridge that we were on but the opposing alliance couldn't get up the bridge. In the meantime our alliance team was supposed to balance the red bridge and never did it. The extra 10 points we had demonstrated in 3 other matches would have won that match. Is that how you quantify that you are good at teamwork and executing the agreed upon strategy? I appreciate all your suggestions!

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Some very good teams scout to a very large extent based on match performance. And it's usually those very good teams occupying the first few alliance captaincies.

If you haven't performed especially well in your matches, you're not going to be a credible choice as their first pick. In fact, depending on your tolerance for not getting picked at all, you may want to consider aiming to satisfy the needs of those top alliances in the second round, rather than be a lower first-round pick with weaker prospects of winning the tournament.

Does it look like those top teams will need someone who can climb the bridge with them every time? Then explain to them that your capability is better than most other robots (because of certain features, as demonstrated in several matches). Do they need smart defence? Then prove to them your drive team understands strategy, executes well, and is willing to accept overall direction from the alliance captain. (Maybe describe a match where your alliance's strategy worked well, and how you contributed.)

Also, you're going to need to reach out to these teams on Friday afternoon. There's inevitably a meeting to discuss the first day's performance on Friday night, from which a preliminary pick list is generated. You need to be as high as possible on that list, and if your performance hasn't been fantastic, you need to at least hope for a favourable annotation about your team's other qualities.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

When I am looking at teams for potential alliances, I look solely at the team, not the win-loss-tie record. That's how many great teams do it, so I've adapted it and it works quite well. Most people look only at what you do. I don't care if you lost match 17 34-26, I care how many of those 26 points you scored, by what means, and what YOU did. I don't care what your alliance members did, and for the most part, I don't care what your opponents did (I do care sometimes).

All in all, nobody is going to look down on you for loosing a match, or for something your alliance members screwed up on, and if they do, there are obviously better alliance partners for you than them.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

It didn't seem to matter at our regional. I don't know if teams weren't recording those stats. I know that the match you talked about we scored 16 of the 26 points. I'm seeing that I need to quantify all of our stats and get them out better. Some teams selected for the tournament only scored 2 pts and had history of technical issues. They did feed the balls during autonomous to the #1 robot but that was an easy recoding after alliance selection that we could have done as well. One problem I am seeing is that we relied on the idea scouting teams would see what we could accomplish. We will definitely be more proactive next year! Great feedback from everyone!

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

....That match was hypothetical. i made it up. :p What you are describing to me doesn't seem accurate. I am in no way calling you a liar, but there are some things you say that don't look 100% accurate. I have never seen a regional where the not as good robots are chosen for alliances over the good ones.

Also, that is a great goal. Be proactive next year. You can't rely on the other team's scouters. Go up and show them yourselves.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

As an aside, you might also make sure your team scouts your own team's performance as objectively as you scout the other teams...then you'll see where you fit in, and you'll get a better idea of how other teams see you (assuming they are doing performance based scouting).

I talked with the scouting people on a couple of the higher seeded teams, they definitely were looking at the field performance of the other teams, and basing their alliance selection largely on that.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

While I completely agree with your point, there are situations where you can gather a lot of information based on what a robot's partner does. At Wisconsin this past weekend, 2169 routinly had their third partner block inbound passes, play defense on fender scorers and other smart strategies. From this, we learned that 2169 was a very smart team that scouted, understood strategy, and could lead alliances. It does take an experience scout/group of scouts to pick up on these things, though.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Jim,

We don't have the student power to have our own "scouting team" yet. It would be interesting to get those stats from one of the large higher seeded teams. Do you know anyone that has them. We followed teams we knew personally and saw them get picked even though it didn't seem like they performed on the field and had technical issues. When we were alias in a match they tipped easily trying to balance in coopertition since they had never balanced. We had multiple balancing bonuses and a coopertition balance. But the quantifying statistics by team would help. The android app only added up the alliance scores for each category for each match the team was on and not the actual performance of the team. If you know anyone that has them it would be nice to see and use as a training for my team to do scouting next year. Thanks.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Ask for collaboration with a neighboring team at your next regional (through some blue alliance research, I'm guessing next year). Granted you guys have to share data, you now have twice the manpower literally at your hands and the ability to gather solid data. Besides, it's a great opportunity to make friends and solidify your relations with other teams.

As for promotion- SELL YOUR ROBOT (AND I DON'T MEAN LITERALLY:p ). Create the opportunity. Put your robot above the others.

As many others had said to me, you can't just go up and say our robot is a great match for you guys. You have to sell on your best aspects of the robot (in this case, it just seems that you guys have the solidity of everything- which amazing!). Some of the best robots fly under the radar simply because it doesn't look good or the team just didn't have substantial scouting data. I have a vague suspicion that your robot and team went under the radar because of both. In short, SELL!!!

Hope this helps for next year!:]

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

This year in Sacramento, 4159 ranked 10th so we knew we would be picking an alliance. As a result we sat down as a team on Friday night and wrote down all other 49 teams on a whiteboard and went down the list and wrote down the pros and cons of each team. The observations were taken from almost all matches on Friday. It was extremely helpful, but what really helped us get an even better idea of teams (seeded below us) were the ones that approached us on Saturday letting us know they would like to work with us. 3256 gave us a nice flyer with their robot information on it (Very nice guys, I really liked it!) This is a very good strategy and it makes you remember the teams.

But as others have said, you need to maintain relationships with teams. For most, scouting starts on Thursday morning. That's when you really let people know who your team is and why you will be good to work with. Friday/Saturday just affirms or negates what you stated.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

We participate in 2-3 team scouting alliances each year for this very reason. The logistics of setting it up and getting everyone data for their matches can be a nightmare at a small regional (since somebody is up basically every third match), but it makes it so students don't have to devote as much of the day to scouting matches.

I have old quantitative scouted data for several regionals dating back to 2009. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you would like a sample.

For our team, our pick list is almost totally based on robot capabilities (wide robots only this year, if possible) and match performance, with priority put toward the more recent matches. If one tries to sell himself or herself to us, we will cross reference his or her claims with our quantitative data and impressions by our subjective scouters.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Thanks again for your posts. These are great procedures you are using. I appreciate your gracious professionalism in making our team greater for next year!:D

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Team 1410 at our regional gave me a sheet of paper with robot specs on it which i proceed to write every other bit of scouting info I needed for the day on. If you gave every captain from a high seeded team a print out for them to keep track of teams and what they are able to do well on when they go up to pick, I am sure that one would pick you.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

If 2nd round pick is all you have a shot at getting, I would suggest focusing on just one aspect of your robot and sell that. Often, especially at early regionals, past the ~6 top tier teams, there are only ~8 more mediocre teams that can do all the game requires. Past those, it gets extremely hard to organize teams into a pick list, since often /none/ of the last 10 teams on your top 24 list can score at an elimination level. In that case, it really helps to provide just one "service"- this year, a simple bridge-pusher or a solid drivetrain would have been huge for a second pick.

It's late now, but if you can spend a summer designing and putting together a solid "team base" you modify slightly and use every year, it will really help no matter what the game is. Even if you do nothing else, you know you can drive, and driving fast (or at all) really catches a scout's eye. 294 has refined the same basic base over a period of 5 years. The only year we haven't used it in that time was 2009, and we don't like to talk about that.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

/offtopic/
Speaking of 294's base, do you have any pictures of it? I'd love to see one up close.
/offtopic/

One of the best ways to be noticed by other teams, though obvious, is to build a good robot. If you're trying to sell yourself, you need to have things to sell, and no matter how good of a salesman you are, the top teams aren't going to pay attention to you if you don't have a good robot. Strike that. Not good. Strive for great. That way, next year, you won't need to worry about selling your team; You'll be the one picking.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

I want to second the comment above mine: Build a strong drive train.


Let me say it again:

Build a strong drive train.

When you're a second pick tier team at a shallow event, often the best indicator of picking is the strength and reliability of your drivetrain.


But onto your original topic, if you're short of students, use a scouting conglomerate like Cowscout, or some other scouting database. Figure out what you want to be picking for, and use numbers like OPR, CCWM, and rankings guide you. Walking around the pits, and watching matches for intuition can be good backups.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

The OPR is out for the Arizona Regional and it has our team ranked 19th out of 50, which seems more accurate to what we accomplished in our matches. Our QP ranking of 37 out of 50 didn't really show that we made autonomous points, teleop points, and balanced. Is it quite common to have such a discrepancy or was the abundance of our difficult matches a fluke?

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

After looking at QP and OPR rankings I can see a definite need to promote yourself to other teams like you all have suggested. Team 4202 at the Arizona Regional was ranked 13 in QP and 11 in OPR and didn't make the tournament. 991 (OPR 18 QP 33) and 1290(OPR 19 QP 37) didn't either. 2 teams were picked that had OPR in the 30's and QP in the 40's.

Now granted there may be one functionality that the alliance wanted that the robot had. Just a point that if you are higher in either rankings you still need to promote yourself.

On a side note, anybody calculating weights of double and triple balancing and if the possibility of balancing is feasible. Seems closer the weights are the closer they can be to each other and near the pivot point of the bridge. Would help eliminate the possibility of tipping because you have to get closer to the edge of the bridge if they weight difference is greater.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Good to see 4146 got picked for the tournament. They had QP of 46 and OPR of 12!

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

That is what scouting is all about

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

I can offer you our perspective for what it is worth.

To be truthful, there is very little your team members can say or do off of the field to "market" your team/robot for alliance picking. We look for alliance picks exclusively through performance and attributes displayed during qual matches. Veteran teams learn that the claims about robot capabilities made by team members anxious to be considered may or may not be true. The only information that scouters can really trust is what is displayed on the field. This can be technical capabilities of the robot, skill and smart choices by the drivers, or a cooperative drive team helps make a match plan and sticks to it.

The best marketing tool is to execute what you can do on the field. If you have an attribute that you think a highly ranked team should want, concentrate on displaying that attribute rather than just winning matches. We do not look at win/loss record or rankings when considering alliance picks. We look for capabilities and smart play that will help our alliance win. If you get the opportunity to play a qual match with a team you hope to join in elims, concentrate on fulfilling your role, and show them you can be a smart, cooperative partner.

The members in our pit are not the ones making scouting and pick decisions, so it does little good to make your pitch to them. If you have a capability that you want us to know about, ask one of our members to get word to our scouters to watch for you and your capability before you play, then go out there and execute it. We can't hope to notice every skill of every team/robot, so we are happy to have you tell us when/where to look. If you have a capability that can help our alliance win, we absolutely want to know about it. But let us know before you play, so we can see it with our own eyes.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Many teams make handouts with their robot picture, features and strategy (ours look similar to the robot page on our website). I think these can be effective if used correctly.

Do NOT run around the pits handing these out 15 mins before alliance selection. Before I was involved in strategy, my role was pit crew. I remember accepting dozens of these handout while we are checking the robot for elims. Those handouts are wholly ineffective then. I was busy with the robot and had no input to the scouting team anyway. The scouting team is busy with finalizing the list and cant look at handouts.

I think the most effective time for those handouts is the first day of the competition. When pit scouts come around to ask your pit crew questions, give them a handout. That is a chance to communicate your message clearly, and probably the best chance to get your message into that team's scouting folder or database. Also train your pit crew to effectively answer scout's questions. Our scouts have some training about things like drive trains, but many are not personally familiar with the intricacies (many of our scouts come from non-robot build subteams like web).

Also, if you see some reps from high seed teams looking around your pit on Elim day, then engage them in conversation and let them clearly see your bot. I know many teams send more mechanically inclined scouts (possibly from their pit crew) to look at potential partners features (e.g. drive train, bridge manipulator strength, overall build quality).

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

We have a pretty small team, which makes promoting ourselves to other teams difficult - once you consider the people wee need in the stands scouting, those who are driving, and those we need to keep in the pit to fix the robot and talk to judges, we pretty much don't have anyone left to wander the pits talking to other teams.

So instead, we get ourselves noticed by our actions. We go out and do our best on the field, and focus on working with our alliance partners in every match. We engage everyone else who is going around scouting and stops by our pits. And as others have mentioned here, we've crafted a very distinctive look for our team that stays in people's minds.

We've also noticed that many teams either don't scout or don't know how to do so effectively. Our rookie year, we were in a position to be picking... and our scouting consisted of taking pictures of robots so we could look through them and talk about which robot we thought was best. Fortunately, we had a great team come up to us Friday morning. They said "You're going to be picking this afternoon, and we think we'll be a good alliance partner for you for these reasons... If you're willing to pick us, we'll share this crate of scouting information we've gathered over the past two days." From that, we learned what scouting was and how to actually do it.

So, starting with our second year we've done serious performance-based scouting. Not only that, but we've shared that data with everyone who wants it (and probably with some people who didn't). We print out a summary of our data, showing lists of the top teams in different categories (this year, it would include number of balls scored, number of bridges balanced, stuff like that). We include a cover letter that describes what the data represents and how it was gathered. That then gets delivered to the pits for the younger teams (mostly rookies), and in the past we've had second or third year teams come up and ask for it, remembering it from last year. The goal here is two-fold: We ensure that all the teams picking have good scouting data, which thus far has always helped us, and we ensure that they learn something about how to collect good scouting data so they can do it next year. Plus it ensures that all those teams know who we are :)

Also, the team discusses scouting Friday night, and pretty much figures out who is going to be on our picking list (if we're in a position to pick), and who we want to watch closely Saturday morning for more information. Teams running around Saturday trying to get noticed don't affect our scouting at all - those in the pits generally have no say on alliance selections. It's the drivers (for feedback on how they work with different teams), and those in the stands who have actually watched every match that make the decisions, and the decisions are based almost entirely on the hard data.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

@SuperNerd256, unfortunately due to a combination of being a programmer and having been kicked out- er, graduated, I am not in a position to provide photos. It's a drop-center 6 wheel drive, center wheel directly driven from custom ratio supershifters, with one chain powering the two edge wheels on dead axles sandwiched between 1/2"(?) CNC-cheesed aluminum sideplates. Idlers are positioned to give proper chain wrap on the center wheel. Key to this is donated CNC time from Northrop Grumman, it would be very hard to pull off without the precision of those machines.

On second thought, I remembered that I stole- was gifted- one of 2010's practice base sideplates. This is still useless to you, as I did not bring it to my dorm, where I am.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

It happens all the time, I don't have any recent examples but two that I remember from a few years back, 2007 Boston Regional team 1919 picked a team with their first pick who had not scored all regional, and another team with their second pick who had not only not scored but had been penalized multiple times for a net contribution of -30 points. All three bots had netted a total of -13 points through the qualification rounds. Many better scorers were on the board at both of their picks. Notably 125 placed the 6th most rings at the regional and was picked by the 3rd seed with their second pick.

It even happens to good teams, 47 made a mistake with their second pick at Championships in 2005 picking a bot that was averaging 1-2 tetras a match when there were many better scorers available.

SOme times it is a mistake, sometimes it is bad scouting, some times it is due to teams picking friends instead of the best alliance available, all in all it does happen.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Very good advice. We also base our picks solely on performance and not on marketing, except during certain circumstances. This year, more than most the ranking system is very bad at determining how well a robot/team actually performs on the field. The only time I ever looked at the rankings was when we were hoping to seed above Titanium :) and when we were remarking at how bad the ranking system worked.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

If you're talking about ranking, yes, it's pretty misleading.

However, the ranking system has the stats for tele-op points, hybrid points, bridge points, and cooperition points. I wouldn't call that part misleading.:p

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Until you figure out that all those points are scored by the alliance.

If I'm a Boxbot and I'm paired with two robots of the caliber of 1114 and 254 every single match, I'm going to look a lot better in the standings than my Boxbot really is.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

And it was entirely due to scouting that they were selected by 498 and 2486. Up until this year I've been heavily involved in 498's scouting, my Dad took over this year now that I am out of state but we talked at length about how scouting was handled this year and the picks made at this year's regional. 2486 was seen as the 3rd best robot in our scouting (after 610 and 842) so they were a no brainer when available. 4146 was relatively high in scoring despite having a horrible QP and the decision was made to go after an alliance that could score heavily in the hybrid period, which is what 4146 did particularly well. Getting 36 hybrid points in the first elimination match convinces me it was a good choice.

To detail how our scouting was developed, I think 2005 was the first time the team made serious attempts at scouting (our first time as an alliance captain was 2004) and we used a similar setup to what many teams use now with computer based scouting. 6 scouts each cover one robot in a match, the data gets merged together (back then by wifi since it was allowed still), and the results are used to plan upcoming match strategy during qualifications. A preliminary pick list is made Friday night and Saturday the list is altered by sudden changes in performance. This worked well for us that year, but in the following years I found this setup wasn't feasible when our team got smaller.

The past couple of years we've had 15 or less students on the team with few interested in scouting, so we changed to needing only 2 scouts at a time. Each scout covers an entire alliance and notes what scores happen by a robot, along with any other quick interesting comments ("dead", "good defense", etc.). Last year was just a quick sheet made in excel, this year I believe we modified SPAM's scouting system to fit our 2 scout method. We always use paper since we don't have enough laptops to go around, and you don't need to recharge paper :rolleyes: . Whoever was in charge of the scouting usually did most of one alliance for the matches, the other alliance was done by whoever we could convince to sit down and write for a few matches (parents not excluded!). We haven't done pit scouting in years, if you're a team we're interested in we'll take a look Saturday morning to see how your robot looks and see then if there are any features that change our likelihood of picking you.

If you're having trouble getting enough students to scout on your team, I would encourage you to go to a simpler format like we've done, or work with other teams to get enough interested bodies for 6 man scouting. For standing out all I can say is perform your best on the field, and maybe let teams on Saturday morning know you've fixed issues you've had or that you're doing better than your QP shows. If you're noticeably good or bad promotion really doesn't matter, but if you're "on the bubble" it may help you out a little to teams with good scouting. For teams without any scouting data I can't quite say what influence it would have.

I'll PM you the contact info for my Dad on 498 if you'd like a copy of our scouting info from this year to see where you fell in the ratings (I don't have a copy of them myself).

And if it's any consolation things like this do happen everywhere, as has been mentioned. My team this year (167) finished 12th at Milwaukee and somewhere in the 16-20 range for most OPR categories but was not picked in eliminations. We lucked out in that we were called in as a backup after QF1-1, but prior to that I was thinking "maybe we should have promoted ourselves more" after seeing some picks that didn't make much sense with what we had scouted.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

It seems you guys continue to talk about how well your robot preforms to other teams in order to have a better chance of being picked. How would we go about doing this in a way that doesnt sound like "PICK ME PICK ME" or isnt awkward or anything?

It seems like "You should pick us because ~~~~" Would be a little bit of a bad thing to just put out there. Any help?

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

I've never liked the idea of "cold calling" teams in their pit so to speak, since to me it always comes across exactly as you stated. I think the better option is to have that kind of information available in your pit if a team stops by and asks about how your robot is performing (and if they're coming by they probably have some interest in picking you). Also team members making friends with other teams helps since there is sometimes informal discussion of "how are you guys doing so far?", and the person you talk to may mention some of those comments to the scouting group later. Last year we had one team we elevated on our pick list after a student mentioned that team xxxx had fixed their arm issues and put up a full row of middle tubes on Saturday (this was despite a 2-8 record or so). Checking the scouting data again confirmed they were performing much better, and the only reason we didn't pick them was that we ended up getting selected by a team above us and there was another team high on our list that they also wanted to select.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

I much prefer teams that say: "we believe you should see us [do something] because we think we'd be a great compliment for your [some skill]. We're playing in match [number], please take a look!" This shows they're paying attention to your skills and the strategic implications of the entire event, and (most importantly) are willing and able to demonstrate their skills.

Unlike most teams, I am the mentor for both strategy management and pit work, so I am in the pit a lot when scouts come by. However, I pay zero attention to pick-me flyers or pitches that come without proof. There's just no time for sorting out the truth without the offer to demonstrate. If I know/have noticed the team already or am asked to watch them for something specific in a subsequent match, that's much more valuable.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

I hear everyone saying perform on the field. I think the problem was if you are "on the bubble" as someone stated then you might be overlooked. Also, I take to heart the suggestion to be highly distinguishable from other teams. I've heard that we were actually wanted for an alliance but our number was similar to others and we were confused with someone else. Completely different functioning robots. Because our team is small we are working on strategies so people know not only who we are but which robot is ours. I think this is where aesthetics come into the design that some teams don't think about. Especially important when "on the bubble". I also like the idea of a communication board in the pit educating people about your bot. Thank you for all the feedback. We are starting to build a business plan for next year based on your gracious professionalism.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Let's assume your goal is to be in the elimination matches.

There are three ways to get there. 1) Win enough matches so your ranking makes you an alliance captain. 2) Perform well enough on the field so your performance makes you an attractive second pick. Second picks usually are decent "primary" scorers. 3) Become a third pick due to your outstanding secondary characteristics. In this year's game, this is probably going to be ability to balance and ability to play effective defense against fender bots.

Notice that marketing has almost nothing to do with the first two ways of getting to the elims. It is all about performance on the field. When you are marketing your robot, you are primarily trying to effect the possibility of your team being a third pick.

To do effective marketing, you need clearly identify your target market, and you need to effectively communicate the right message. In this case, your target market is/are the decision makers on the two better teams who have the power to decide to pick you. Since you cannot know ahead of time exactly which teams these will be, market to all the teams. I saw this mentioned in just one other post, but it bears repeating: Be sure you are directing your communications to the right person or persons. The people who are going to be making the pick lists are probably not in the pits. They are in the stands doing scouting. If you are trying to sell your team, and are walking from pit to pit doing so, your first question should be, "Can I speak with a member of your scouting team?" If there is no one in the pit from scouting, ask for a name, and go find that person in the stands. Communicating the right message to the wrong person is not effective marketing.

Next, you need to communicate the right message. Remember who your target market is. You are not trying to sell your "primary" scoring ability. If you were a steller scorer, you would be one of the two teams doing the picking, not one of the many hoping to be picked. Your performance on the field would have achieved this already. Rather, emphasize the qualities that will distinguish you from the rest of the mid-pack robots.

The most effective marketing strategy I can think of would be to track down the mentor and student in charge of making the pick list for each team. Place in their hands a flyer. The most important thing on the flyer is a huge picture of your robot, so they will see it and remember to watch for it on the field. Under that, list the qualities that make you an attractive third pick.

Just for the fun of it, here is a flier for our team. (Look for us at the North Carolina Regional.)

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-y...%2520flier.gif

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

It's not a bad flier, but even that is too much self-promotion for a scout to take seriously. As you said, the picture is the most important thing, but that picture doesn't tell a scout what he wants to know. Better would be shots of the drivetrain, the "high traction wheels" themselves, and the bridge manipulator. A scout does not trust your declaration of "no penalties", "bridge manipulator works", "can drive over balls to balance", and will not have faith in your drivers' years if it is not evident on the field. What he might do, however, is look at a team number on his pick list as he attempts to rank it, and wonder exactly what that robot /has/. Conventional scouting is good at figuring out how well a robot performs, but it's a bit harder to judge the overall quality of construction, how likely it is to fail, etc. That's why a scout would like a picture of your bridge lowering device: Is it a wimpy pneumatic piston, or is it a beast of aluminum? Does it look taped together? That's the sort of thing that he can use to place your robot above the near-identically-performing next one. Otherwise, your only option is to just do better.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

If anyone wants to see how OPR and QP points can vary here is the comparisons in an excel file from the Arizona regional:

Just click "Login as Guest" to get it.

Granted having scouts record more specifics based only on individual team statistics is a better measurement tool.

P.S. Just wanted to congratulate 498 and 2486 on their awesome scouting!

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Our head coach said pretty much the same thing when he saw it. Our actual team policy is to do little to no self promotion at all. We scout others based on what happens on the field, not what they say they can do, and expect others to scout us the same way.

It seems that the gist of the thread is that aggressive marketing is at best ineffective, and at worst off-putting. So, (speaking as a relative newcomer to the FIRST scene) why do so many teams do it? It seems like it must have been effective for someone at some point in time, or the practice would have died out. Or is it a case of newcomers seeing people doing something that seems like a good idea, and copying them, even though it's not? (Like shouting "Robot!")

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

Right. The best you can hope for, I think, is to be helpful. If you are performing as well on paper as teams with wimpy drivetrains, but your drivetrain is really a beast that hasn't had opportunity to show its true potential, you can help other teams' scouts out by giving them pictures of your drivetrain. They should (hopefully) be able to tell a solid drivetrain when they see one. But if you have the exact same robot as everybody else on the field, there's not much you can do.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

I know you will probably tell me this is the exception but when you balance on a coop bridge with a high seed alliance and they want to pick you but confuse you with a similar team number that tipped when trying to balance, there's a problem. You are saying to rely on their scouting. I say we didn't distinguish ourselves enough. There were good suggestions in here for doing that. Making our "uniforms" and robot's aesthetics recognizable, showing pictures (should have printed the picture of us balancing and given it to them), something to bring attention to robot when it accomplishes a function, pit board with key important aspects, etc. would all help do this.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

In the competition this year, a lot of the second pick robots come down to teams that A have a good hybrid program or B have good triple balancing capabilities (a wide base, a small robot base, a balance assistance mechanism). These capabilities are incredibly important, but for the triple balance capabilities at least, may not be revealed during the qualifying matches. If you think that your robot could easily be part of a triple balance, don't just tell someone that, show them. Get out onto the field on Thursday during practice matches and attempt to triple balance. On Friday, if you still aren't being courted, get together with a high ranked team you want to be with, go to the practice field and triple balance with them.

956 in Portland was seeded 40th, had an OPR of 1.8, which gave them the OPR rank of 48th. By most scouting metrics, they were not a great team. But because of good scouting- scouting beyond just how many points they scored on the field- they were identified and picked. They won the regional.

TL;DR-
If you can convince high ranked teams that they can easily triple balance with you, you will most likely be selected for eliminations.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

A robot or team that stands out can help ("those are the guys with the bunny ears, right?") but don't rely entirely on it. There aren't any colors that *someone* isn't using.... One thing we do is take pictures(1) of *every* robot, and we project those at our Friday pick list discussion so everyone knows what robot we're discussing. So one thing you can do is when someone from another team comes by to take a picture, make sure you clear out some space. That would also be a good time to point out "take a look at our bridge wedge, and how we lock it down", and encourage a picture of the specific.

Ask if the photographer is part of the team's scouting group, or if they're just an interested spectator. If the former, tell them what to look for next time you're on the field (and tell them when you'll be there). As other people have said on this thread, we'd be more likely to look at a feature on your robot if you can relate to us why our alliance would need that.

When I'm teaching them how to debug code I tell my FLL kids to look at what the program *does*, not what they *want* it to do. Big difference, and seems obvious when you think about it. Robot performance is exactly the same thing..tell teams what you've done (or what you've fixed to make something work that hadn't been) and tell them what to look for. Good scouting is hard; you can help be noticed if you help the process.

And one other thing: please make sure you listen when we're trying to explain to you why we think you might want to pick us.

(1) when you get to the point that you're taking pictures you get a lot better view of the robot if you take a diagonal shot, not straight on from either the front or the side. And always make sure the bumpers are on.

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

We do not promote ourselves to other teams by telling them what we can do. We show them on the field and in the statistics. Sometimes at the end of Friday, I share our scouting data with the top 24 teams if there is something about us that should be highlighted. I never look at flyers that other teams give us. I am usually way to busy analyzing the data.
We take pictures of every robot with their bumpers on so we know what they look like during our scouting meeting Friday night. We have every bit of scouting information about every robot to make our decision. We have 6 students on a rotating basis to watch every robot of every match. Last year we even tape every match so we can go back to review them if needed.
One suggestion is on Saturday morning, if your team leaves a student at the pit, make sure that student knows about the robot and can answer questions. When I stop by to ask questions, I am interested in that robot and I may not have time to come back a second time if I don't get the answer from that student the first time.
We rely heavily on scouting data, OPRs and notes from watching matches to make our alliance selection list. We put teams into 3 categores, good, average and below average (do not pick) teams. We go back to look at the average category robots and ask questions to finalize where we put teams on our alliance selection sheet.
We usually go back to each pit Saturday morning to confirm

Re: Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts
 

On Thursday, our "pit scouting" is limited to what kind of drive train teams have -- we don't ask questions about functionality, because teams will inevitably tell you what their robot was designed to do, and not what it actually can do. For all other information we rely on field data.

Ideally, concentrating on what you're trying to show off should help you win matches. It doesn't always work (three non-scoring robots vs. 1507, 340, and an immobile box), but it's at least putting up the best fight you can put up. If the relevant feature isn't helping your alliance, it probably won't help a tournament alliance either.

In years past we have eliminated potential picks from our list because they wouldn't stick to a plan agreed to in a qualifying match. I'll bet other teams make the same decision for the same reason.

Yup. That's a big deal! When asked if we could feed balls at Buckeye, we switched our autonomous mode and fed balls the next match, and told those who had asked to watch.

Be ranked 3rd! :p

Ours, too. We don't make flyers and try to be painfully honest when discussing capabilities in Qualifying Match strategy meetings.

...or putting up "safety fliers" that tell us things like the bathroom floors may be wet? ;)