Falcon Scouting System
 

Introducing the Falcon Scouting System. This is a scouting system that we developed on C# with the help of EHaskins that will be used for the next FRC season with the new game being updated to it of course. We made this system after Dr. Karen Suhn helped us develop our first scouting system years ago. With this system, one scouter will take a game pad and scout one team from one alliance (hence the different colored game pads for red and blue alliance).

Various button combinations make certain counters go up or down in value and are shown using labels. An example of this would be a combination of the right trigger and triangle being pressed at the same time will make the counter for top basket attempted go up showing that the team attempted a top basket.

After the match is over, you press the Save Data button and all the data will be saved to a notepad file and all the numbers will be comma separated. Then, they can be transferred to an excel file. All the counters will also reset meaning that it will be ready for the next match.

We still need to fix some minor issues but the code will be released as soon as we are finished.

Here is another picture and a screen shot:

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

What a neat idea.

Do you have an error checking setup that would calculate the total match score implied by the scouts' entries?

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Incredibly cool!

How do you sort through this information? Do you have some sort of weighted algorithm, or do you just export to Excel, combine and average the data for each team, and then sort?

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

I like this.

Looks really, really cool!

-Nick

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

The more I think about this, the more interested I get. This seems to be a fairly efficient way to get to a relatively low-cost, low-equipment electronic scouting system.

I have a lot of questions, and I hope that you're inclined to explain more: How does each controller's user know which team they're supposed to be scouting? How do you know which controller is which? How do the scouts know what buttons do what?

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Good Job Sergio, now you need to work on the travel case!

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Very neat!

Can you share info on the gamepads - brand and source?

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

It looks really cool! My only concern is that all the scouters might need to be able to see the screen, I know I would always be nervous that I accidentally hit a button or flicked a stick too many times and I'd need to be checking my numbers constantly. If the scouters sit in 2 rows it probably wouldn't be a problem I guess.

Edit: They look like PDP Afterglow controllers to me. http://www.pdp.com/p-717-afterglow-a...station-3.aspx

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Pelican Afterglow
many places sell it, here is just one example
http://www.meijer.com/s/pelican-afte...lue/_/R-167229

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

We haven;'t had an issue in the past, you could always use a larger external monitor and clone the displays

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

To answer the first question, the scouter that is on the far left red game pad will always scout red 1 robot and will look at the far left red panel to score. Then the same for the middle red game pad where they always scout red 2 robot and look at the middle red panel to score and so on. The blue ones are the same where the far left game pad scouts blue 1 and uses the first blue panel.

To know which controller is which, the person scouting the red 1 robots will use the red game pad that is connected to the first port on the USB hub that only the red game pads are connected to then so on for the other scouters.

We will teach the scouters what buttons do what and make them practice scouting with it using videos of matches so they can get more comfortable with the buttons and memorize them.

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Absolutely Amazing!

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

This looks great!

Any chance that you plan on sharing or "open sourcing" the code for this project?

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

We are not entirely done with the scouting system yet. We still need to implement a place for autonomous mode. Once we finish it, we will be sure to share it.

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Great to hear! A lot of teams could benefit from this.

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

What program did you use? It a excellent idea for scouting during the match.

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Interesting idea. As usual, I have a few thoughts of how I'd do it differently...

It would probably be easier on your scouters if there was some sort of stream view/notification view that showed what they just changed. The easiest way to do this is flash numbers when manipulated, but you may already be doing that (I can't tell from a still).

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

We currently do not have that but it seems like a neat idea. Thanks for the suggestion!

We programmed this using C# and SlimDX for the controller input.

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

I hope I'm not jumping on this late, but has this been updated since 2012? Looks really nice!

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

This is fantastic, even if you don't end up sharing the coding with other teams, would you have the information readily available for others at the events you attend? Also have you guys been able to update it for this years game so far?

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

We have updated it for this game and it is currently being prepared to release it. Expect the release to be within a week along with many new features added.

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Sounds great John. We look forward to testing it out.

Thanks for spreading a great system around.

-Bernie

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

I am currently working on a separate program that sorts through all the saved data and averages each and every scoring method. The display and all the code is currently updated for this year's game. Expect it soon!

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Just showed this to team 4269. They LOVE it! we will be expecting it soon

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Good job Sergio, even though I pick on you all the time....just want you to be the best!

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

Do you know when and where you will be releasing the code?

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

He said he would post it on chief delphi by the end of the week. If it's not in this thread he'll probably post a link.

Re: Falcon Scouting System
 

In case you guys missed it.

The code and instructions have been released and are in the following thread!

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=113210

Thank you Falcon Robotics and Sergio for opening this up to the community!