Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

Hey. I am looking to propose an upgrade to tablets for scouting next year to my team and budget person. I would like suggestions on a cheap ($100ish or less) tablet for scouting. We would be using around 7 or 8 tablets for scouting so I don't want to go above $1000. I think we will be using Tableau but, I still need to mess around with Tableau before that's final. We can also run something simpler on the tablets like excel and transfer into tableau on a laptop if we decide to use tableau next year. If you can add a link for the tablet, that would be great. Thanks!

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

We use the Microsoft Surface units and have had good success making our own apps for them. Never run tableau on them though. If you find DareDad on here he can definitely direct you in the right direction for the app part of it.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

anything remotely good will be a couple hundred dollars, no way around it.

Now, the Asus T100 is a touchscreen laplet (laptop/tablet) and is about $350 and i use it daily for my own personal uses (gaming, youtube, creeping on delphi, etc) and the 64gb version with a 64gb microsd has lasted me a while, the only downside is the small screen and only one USB port. Oh, it also has full Windows 8.1! (i also heard it can use the W10 preview if you wanted to use that, never tried though.)

the Asus T200/300 is more expensive, but has a bigger screen/storage/usb so those may be better. Finding a full windows tablet for $100 thats any good? not possible new.


Now, you said you were looking for a tablet. looking on Tableau shows that android/Ios use is not possible. is this what you meant?

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

If you're on a budget, like 195 was, I would suggest not running Tableau on the actual tablets. Instead, we compile all of the data from our custom Microsoft Access program onto one Laptop that is more than capable of running Tableau. While the transfer of data to one final computer can be inefficient sometimes, we found that running Tableau on the actual tablets was not very feasible.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

Hi, my team recently acquired a few iPad minis and, I think that is what our scouting team is going to be using next year. We too are on a budget, so the way our team acquired the tablets was through an online crowd funded campaign, surprisingly we reached our goal were able to receive 2-3 iPads, although if you need more than 2-3, it probably will be a difficult. Just an idea?


I don't know how well you will be able to run your desired program on this, but in terms of Performance v. Price, I think this tablet deserves consideration,

Acer Iconia Tab 8:
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Iconia-B1...r+iconia+tab+8

I have used it for about 2 months now, and it is pretty good for the price, and I believe if you don't put too much stress on it, it will be really good for scouting.

(There's an android and windows version, I believe)

- Within the $100 range, with the refurbished model costing less
- Responsive enough to get the job done
- subpar camera
- Good sized
- SD Expansion

If you can go over budget a bit, I would opt for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4, which is more responsive and "premium"

I strongly recommend you do not buy a tablet for less than $100, the performance drastically decreases, which creates for an overall non-responsive, sluggish experience.

Good luck!

This is a really smart idea, if the tablets aren't very powerful, scouting would make for a bad experience, but if you kind of, "centralize" the process it would work better. Maybe even with google drive? I'm not a scouting team member, but from what I've seen other teams do, I think it may be worth considering!

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

We have used windows tablets as well, not for data input, but for data processing. I'd suggest trying to find a windows 7 tablet, but almost any windows tablet will work alright. Just never, EVER get something with windows RT, as it has a lot of serious limitations.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

So would you feel that running excel or another simpler program on a tablet and transferring that data to one of our laptops and then put that into tableau would be a better way to scout?

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

Yes. Tableau is a very extensive program that I don't see working well on a touchscreen tablet, and I doubt it would have the processing power to run it anyway.

Bringing data from multiple tablets helps to guaruntee a better data set that Tableau can analyze. We have 6 tablets (each focuses on 1 robot) and 3+ laptops(lead scouters who watch all robots) that feed information to one "Master" laptop. This "Master" laptop compiles all of the data to give to tableau, which is then redistributed back to multiple laptops.

There is a lot of data transfer involed, and it's mostly done on flash drives. It seems inefficient, but I haven't heard any complaints from the scouting team.

We've been using this scouting system for 2 years now, we love it.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

We do similar things to that as well when it comes to transferring data. It's just that we use old PDAs and use excel which is why I'm looking at upgrading PDAs to tablets and excel as final to Tableau as final data analyzer. So I'm fine with the data transfer. We use lots of flash drives as is too.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

NEVER get Windows RT. RT (at least win8 RT) Blocks anything except what you can get in their appstore, which is basically useless for FRC (or just about anything.)

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

We do something similar - 6 Nexus 7s feed information via post-match USB connection to a master laptop or 2 running Tableau. The Nexuses (Nexi?) are running our custom scouting application, and we have another custom app on another Nexus that our drive coach carries around. She gets the information via a pre-match USB drive that someone runs down from the stands to the pit.

It can get a little complicated, but we end up with a ton of useful data, and it's worked well in more or less this form for a while (we switched from iPads to Nexus 7s last year and never looked back).

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

In the past Team 58, The Riot Crew, used laptops with a custom MS Access program. The data was collected on Dell Axim PDAs running Windows CE and was synced to the laptops on a regular basis.

This worked very well but had its limitations, small screens for data collection, no keyboard for typing, no camera for pit scouting, AND battery life.

This year we purchased 6 HP Stream 8s running Windows 8.1. We then created a custom C# application using MS Visual Studio Community Edition and saved its data to a MS SQL Express database. The Scouting teams were able to use these much easier then the PDAs. They have nice cameras for pit scouting and an on screen keyboard. (We did purchase some bluetooth keyboards as well) The tablets sync to a laptop that is powerful enough to ran Tableau.

The great thing about this approach is that the development software was free and easy to move from one system to another.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

Cameras would be nice for pit scouting. Does anyone have any ideas for what tablet friendly program to use to collect the data? we have used excel in the past. Would that be good to use and then transfer it into tableau on the laptop?

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

Honestly Excel seems like the easiest way, its on almost any computer (or a knockoff version of it) and its pretty simple for anyone to get started on.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

I feel like I'm reading my own suggestion to our scout mentor! 3525 is also hoping to upgrade to a cheap-ish tablet that is Tableau compatible (more specifically, that can run programs like Excel that are Tableau compatible). The Toshiba Encore 7" is what I've got my eye on right now ($69-99). We are also planning on buying 7 or 8 if I can successfully develop a program with a teammate and convince my mentor.

As others have said, having a laptop is definitely a good idea. It's good to have a central hub of information, maybe even two. I haven't gotten the chance to test Tableau on these specific tablets, but it would be nice if it did (easy for drive team). I'm unsure if it has the processing power for that.

Also, if you do decide to upgrade, I highly suggest only buying one of the tablet you're interested in, or borrowing/renting it. Make sure you know what programs you're going to be using for scouting, and see how they run on the tablet of your choice.

PM me if you have any questions about scouting! C:

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

We do the same thing, but we don't have the scouting budget for team-owned tablets. Instead, team members install the app on their devices, or, if they have an iPhone, they use an old Galaxy S3 we rescued from electronics recycling. It's a logistical nightmare getting all the data together, but it works and it saves a lot of money.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

In 2014 Robotarians bought 3 Nexus 7" tablets. We have 1 left. One got dropped and the other just stopped charging properly.

In 2015 we bought 5 Amazon Kindle 6" tablets. We waited until they were on sale (about once a month or so) and got them for $85 a piece. They are a little cheaper because they have app adds on the lock screen (didn't bother us). They are pretty rugged and other than being small (we adjusted our interface and all was right with the world). Their current commercial says it is twice as durable as an ipad and I believe it.

Do not go with a "generic" tablet. We ordered 6 from black friday at Walmart. They were RCA. We figured that they'd be low end (THey were $60 a piece) but they are RCA so should be ok. They were unusable. Constantly rebooting and just plain unresponsive. The screens could only be read at certain very odd angles.

Tableau AFAIK is a Windows program that you use to analyze the data you get from your tablets. I don't think it runs on tablets.

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

Has anyone out there used Chromebooks to just gather the data?

What are your thoughts on using a chromebook? I realize that they don't have a touchscreen and they are somewhat limited, but if you just need excel (or something similar to do the data collection, then couldnt it be possible to do the 'heavy number crunching' on a different machine?


(Its helpful that they are so cheap, and that many schools are 1:1 with them)

Re: Good Scouting Tablets That Run Tableau
 

Not a bad idea since almost every kid on our team already has one from the school. Could use google sheets but that data would need to be transferred to excel since I am pretty sure Tableau doesn't like fetching data from an internet program but, I may be wrong. And obviously we would transfer the data to a better machine since tableau can't be run on a low quality chromebook.