Motivating your Scouts
 

In many different threads, I have heard mentions of techniques used by teams to motivate their scouts. Many of these go by names like ____ bucks. On our team, scouting has built up a little infamy and we are looking for ways to help make scouting fun again for them.

What strategies have you seen used or used yourself to keep scouting fun?

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

I take it that you've heard of the SimBucks method of betting on matches for some sort of prize then?

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

On our team we have made sure to stress the great importance of scouting. This makes it more enjoyable knowing that you are doing something important, and it also gets us the best data we could ask for because everyone is focused to do their best. Also, we have a substitution schedule set to make sure the scouters don't get overloaded and bored.

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

When I first saw this thread, I could have sworn it was a boy/girl scouts question (maybe I ought to go to bed).

Anyway, it can be disheartening if you never use the scouting data for picking, but try to instill in them that if you need it and don't have it, you will be in quite a bind. I don't really remember how we pulled it off, but in 2011 at our second district, we were #7 captain, and the picklist was a big help. And then in 2013 at our second district, we were picked by a rookie?, unprepared #8 captain, so the list helped in attempting to get a good third pick (I don't think the #1 alliance was beatable with the teams available, though).

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

Yes I have, but I have never heard it explained in any detail. Could you or someone else describe in more in-depth for us?

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

I learned about it from Karthik Smith himself. (The link takes you to his 2012 Effective FIRST Strategy and Design presentation.)

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

When I was part of 1519, our primary motivator was that we won matches with scouting data. Many teams think of scouting data as a means to make their pick list on Saturday - but it's also invaluable in every match. After many events, an email would go out to the effect of, "In match 34, our alliance was statistically less powerful than our opponents. But thanks to the scouting data, we knew that opposing team X needed to do Y to be an effective scorer, and so we specifically targeted that. We ended up winning the match by three points."

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Most teams have their lead scout represent their team when its time to pick an elimination alliance right? That's a good incentive.

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

I found that when we moved from paper scouting to a direct electronic input method for the quantitative data, the scouts perked right up.

I also had every active scout pick red or blue before every match they scouted at our first event and gave a prize at our post-season party to the most accurate (>10 matches), but that didn't seem to have as much effect as making the mechanics more fun.

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

Since most of our scouting is done digitally there is usually quite a bit of downtown between matches. This year we are going to try and make our scouting team scouting/strategy. The idea is that in between matches, the scouters would look very deeply on the team's next match and try to think of ever scenario that can happen in the match. Then pick the best strategy that will give our team the highest chance of winning and communicate and also listen to feedback to the drive team. This way scouters aren't just recording vitally important data, they are actually using it and see the result of recording that data as their strategy is being executed on the field. I'll let you guys know how it goes after our first regional at AZ. One year we also had a team movie night with the movie MoneyBall. I recommend that everyone especially the scouters watch that movie.

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

Just wanted to add that last year we used the Falcons software for our scouting and we did exactly this. Our scout team collected the data and then summarized the abilities of our next match to our drive team. They in turn took that to the alliance meeting and worked out strategies for offense and defense based on how well robots on both sides had performed.


Couldn't have done it without the great software the Falcons provided for all to use. Thanks!

-Bernie

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

FYI: Karthik of 1114's surname is Kanagasabapathy.

All we need to do is make it known to ALL scouters how important the data collected is to elimination matches. Even if you're not a top 8 seed, your information is still useful if you're a second pick, as you can confer with the drafter to select a robot with the best fit for your alliance. Also, if you're going to multiple competitions, the data will still hold some weight to the robots and will help you in qualification matches.

I personally scouted almost every qualification match at worlds for my team. I found it rewarding to help the team in finding good alliance partners. We have volunteers that organize scouting and hand out the sheets we used, and if I wanted to continue scouting after my shift was up, they were all for it. Maybe I'm just a weird one for enjoying scouting? :p

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

I think one of the biggest reasons kids don't like scouting is because they feel like they're stuck with it and like they're just getting boring busy work. If you have people on the drive team who are willing to come up and scout in between matches for fun, and they let the younger kids know that they enjoy it, it makes an impact on their view of scouting. Similarly, having mentors there who are actively showing their enthusiasm about scouting, students will follow suit. Loud is fun. Having people

Apart from that, you need to cycle people. No matter who it is, just writing down what robots do match after match gets tedious. Doing 60-minute stints generally works well. Arranging scouting alliances with other teams can help if you have a small team.

Giving scouts higher-up roles (handing out scouting sheets, helping out in data input, making sure people are on-schedule, etc.), in my experience, makes them take scouting more seriously, because they feel more important.

Apart from that, giving out scout treats every match (we used starbursts last year) gives a boost to morale.

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

It's a joke from this thread

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

Saw the thread. Mindlessly parsed your post to ignore the first link and only played the second link (I'd noticed the URLs were similar and automatically assumed the first one was a typo). Now I get it.

That said? I don't get the confusion, its pronounced exactly how it looks like it would sound to an fluent English speaker. But, maybe I'm just privileged in having spent my entire FIRST career at events MCd by Karthik, and thus have heard him say it a whole bunch of times.

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

We personally take rounds doing scouting. Students A, B, and C scout in the morning while students D, E, and F scout in the afternoon. (Of course, you may want more than three people scouting.)

This not only keeps the scouts from getting fed up with their job, but also allows everyone on the team a chance to put in their $0.02 on each robot.

Re: Motivating your Scouts
 

I don't think Kissing is allowed lol