Scouting 2016
 

I'm wondering what types of data you will be collecting on other teams during scouting. I'm not super experienced in it and would like to get an idea of what everyone wants to know about each other, in the hope that it will benefit anyone who reads this.

I'm more interested in data points that can be expressed as variables in a database. Stuff like "strategy" is far too broad, in order for a computer to parse it, it would be better to list specific yes/no questions like "can you shoot in the high goal?".

Re: Scouting 2016
 

We stated scouting last year and it made a huge difference.

What we like to track is past performance (current year ) and (previous years) both indicate "Class" and expectations.

Then we look at Min and Max score range for current year matches

Then we look at how they achieve max score. What they do best.

Then on ground visuals and interviews exchanging info ahead of matches.

Its good to have a convincing captain to help orchestrate strategy each match based on collected tendencies. That can elevate game results.

I personally think to many data points is unnecessary to do effective scouting. So we try to keep it simple and relevant.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Are you referring specifically to pit scouting or to match scouting as well? In general data should be more quantitative such as number of high goal hits vs. number of high goal misses, number of defenses breached, etc... Instead of simple yes/no questions.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Both. There is tons of offensive data posted so no need to ask. This year it'll be more important to find out what defenses teams can't cross as that won't be posted most likely.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Are you referring to pit scouting, where you ask teams questions about their robots? Or are you referring to field scouting, where you watch what their robot is actually capable of?

This year, I feel that pit scouting has very little value. Most teams will have practiced with team versions of a few Defenses, and some will be lucky enough to practice with all 8 of them. I think that a team's response is going to vary greatly from actual performance on the field. In fact, if our team is unable to find an official field to practice on before our first tournament, I'm going to push our drive team to be upfront with other scouters. If we haven't tested our robot on an official rough terrain defense, our people in the pit should say that. I'd rather our robot prove it's merit by showing its ability on the field.

That being said, there are a lot of data points to collect by watching a robot perform on the field. Focus on the ways a robot can score, and try to break those down into easy to define variables. As your team's robot is developed, think about the ways other robots can compliment you, or be a detriment to you, and record that information as well.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

The way we do it is get eyes on every bot.... that is assuming there are videos, in person or watch prior matches...nothing replaces eyes on bots.

Then we look at collected statistics to either confirm or question what our eyes saw.

The pit scouting is a second layer of confirmation, perhaps they are working on something new. Or to understand more about what we already witnessed and to find ways to enhance play together. Same with the opponents we share info back and forth because you never know if they will be in eliminations later.

So instead of solely numbers, we put in the eyewitness accounts that show all the little nuances in play.

In almost every case we could predict the matches we would win or lose ahead of time and get the score pretty close too. drive team said how valuable the intel was each match.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

I wasn't really thinking of a specific type. I assume that we could go around to pit areas and ask questions, and then corroborate those answers based on their performance in matches. It's the same data in most cases.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Especially for this years game I would be very dubious with what teams say they can cross and what they can actually cross. I am my teams scouting/strategy mentor and what I try and teach my kids is that a lot of the time the people you meet and talk to in the pit, don't really know the full capability of the robot. Relying on the numbers that you take on the field, and data that you can collect beforehand from videos and previous competitions is where you should put the most stock in terms of accurate information.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Chances are if a team can cross one of two defenses in a group it can cross the other, with the exception being the cheval de frise/portcullis that requires a separate mechanism from the drive train that differs between the two obstacles. You can see if they have that very quickly by looking at their robot during pit scouting. Pit scouting in general however is often times very useless as it often fails to obtain reliable information, something that will especially be an issue this year (last year in Utah I believe I had 20 teams or so that told me they could do a full autonomous mode/they were capable of it when in reality only one team had that capability). In terms of match scouting what you look at is more of speed/point efficiency during a match and other ways that the robot either succeeds or fails. This includes a large amount of "number of _____ per match" statistics. The most important part of scouting is that you focus on qualities that you would want in an alliance partner/what you want to avoid. A robot's performance in a match is the only way to tell how good it actually is. Even things like videos can be misleading, high shooters this year may appear very accurate in videos, but when a team hits a match they could be unable to align their robot in a way that they could get that shot off.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

A good place to start would what be defenses they can do, as well as how fast it takes them. Also do they have climbing capability? Can they shoot boulders, if so low or high goal? On average how many boulders can they shoot in 1 game? Can they cross all defenses within 1 match? Then of course the usual how well would their bot work with yours.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

The questions I would ask in scouting are super strategy and super structure abilities, as well as auto plans. Really want to keep it light this year for scouting I find I get a lot more information then I actually need for scouting.
Pit walk/observations would be heavy emphasis on drive base for defense counter picks.
On field it looking for synergies for alliances.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Some obvious stuff is like # of high goals scored, # of times they crossed each defense, whether they climbed, etc.

More data is usually good as long as you can manage it all.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Preliminary planning on our app pretty much has this looking like some past years besides scouting crossing the defenses which will be huge. Shots in each goal, missed shots, scoring actions in auto, fouls, endgame, and effectiveness of defense are a good place to start. It's nice to break data down beyond scoring to actual capabilities since we like to play to our alliance's strengths.

And some friendly advice for pit scouting: don't believe what people say, just what you see. If they really want you to believe they can cross 'X' defense, have them show you.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Our scouting strategy is most likely going to consist of statistics not gained through interviews. As this year's game is so performance driven, it is unlikely that a team would not show its full potential on the field.
-Our scouting criteria will most likely consist of the following-
- Defenses which the robot can cross
- Speed at which the robot can cross said defenses
- Number of balls the robot can score in a match
- Effectiveness at defense
- Type of shooter (linear / arced / catapult / other)
- Effectiveness at climbing
- Which goals the robot an score in

Re: Scouting 2016
 

The primary purpose of scouting is to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of every other team at the competition. This is easily quantifiable this year (for example, being able to cross a defense is a strength, while not being able to cross it is a weakness). Also take into consideration speed and consistency, as scoring faster or more accurately is a strength. Every data point you take should be an indicator of a strength or weakness compared to other teams. Some obvious ones I see are:

Can they go through defense a, b, c, ...?
Boulder scores vs. misses (and which goal they score in)
Cycle times
How many damaging crossings they have
How many shots they block/defend on the other team
Do they challenge the tower in every match?
Can they scale? How consistently?
etc.

Using the information you collect, you can figure out who you would want to have as an alliance partner. Generally, the optimal alliance would be one where the 3 robots minimize each other's weaknesses and boost each other's strengths. If you are in a captain's position, form an alliance with that team. If you are not in a captain's position, make sure to communicate with teams you're interested in allying with who are in a captain's position. If you can provide reasoning as to why they should pick you, then they might pick you.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Yeah, this year I've been designing a scouting webapp that is focused 100% on on-field scouting. I'm pretty sure a light amount of pit scouting would be really all that's useful, since teams will surely try to promote themselves. They might also have different luck under ideal conditions, as opposed to an actual match.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Do you all think that Practice Field scouting would be beneficial? Also, make sure you're scouts are well trained and probably want to be there all day on Thursdays.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Only for training new scouts. Teams aren't ready on practice day and their efforts on the field aren't indicative whatsoever of their final performance.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

True, but it is probably the best way to determine how they will preform Friday morning when you have no 'real' matches to base strategy off of.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

A big thing this year to scout as well is driver performance. Definitely a more qualitative form of data, but something that could prove useful. Being a game with cramped space, a driver's ability to work around the defense could prove to be super useful information when going into elimination picks. The flip side of that, a robot could have the ability to perform well, but in the hands of the wrong drivers this year, being a more defense heavy game, teams can perform poorly

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Not necessarily. The qualitative notes we take match-to-match are an extremely valuable asset, as they allow us to recall certain robots more precisely. Especially if there's a lot of teams who look almost the same statistically, certain observations can be the difference between a good pick and a bad pick.

Personally, I think the most important metric this season (second to average scoring and consistency, of course) will be high goal consistency. It's a difficult objective, as it requires consistent positioning and consistent shooter angle/velocity, but it's worth great points, in a game where no one basic objective is worth much more than any other.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

Teams aren't ready, but you can still get a "feel" of the competition. Usually I just walk around the pits, watch performances on the practice fields, etc. As the team strategist, its beneficial for me so I get a feel of what type of robots I may see at the competition during practice day.

Also if your team uses a electronic scouting system it's always super beneficial to test out your system to make sure it runs as you want it to during practice day.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

But you can see what defenses they (think they) can cross over.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

It could be more useful than pit scouting, but it's still very different conditions than an actual match. What I'd recommend is doing some pit/practice scouting at first, but relying on match scouting after enough is compiled.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

im new to FRC, coming from VEX, and scouting wasn't anywhere nearly as in-depth as it is here. What do you recommend for an interface. im willing to develop applications, use web-based, iOS, Android. Anything.


EDIT: I plan on developing a design similar to http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img...485ea6c2_l.jpg by user 'The Doctor' using Microsoft Virtual Studio, and I'm curious at what methods I could use as to organize this between six scouts. only focusing on field scouting, perhaps with an editable notes field for pit scouting. willing to use LTE as a viable method of sharing the information.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

You would want to speak with the drive team to ensure that you can work with them.

Three of us were pit scouting to look for robots to cheesecake at the Lone Star Regional last year. A team that "made the top 70% possible" told our team member to "go away because they were busy" after answering one or two questions about their robot. Needless to say, we made sure that we did not pick them. Our second pick was a team that ranked lower but demonstrated clearly that they wanted to work with us. Our team member doing the pit scouting is a pretty mild and polite guy so I doubt that he said anything to offend them.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

I think the basics about this game are pretty well covered here. So I'm going to throw in my two bits about pit scouting.

You get mixed signals on pit scouting when you talk to other people about it. Many mid to upper tier teams don't do pit scouting. I personally think this is a mistake, but then again I would also argue that most teams that do pit scouting are doing it wrong. The big problem with doing it well is that it is really hard to teach others how to do it.

The general question and answer session that teams like to do isn't terribly useful. Teams tend to tell you what the design goals for the robot is, not what the existing robot is actually doing. It not that they are intentionally misleading you, but that they are giving in to human nature and being overly optimistic. However, asking questions can be useful when a team tells you it can't do something. Teams tend to be telling the truth when they do that.

What is more useful is getting pictures of the robots, so you can put a face to the name, so to speak. Also a visual inspection of a robot, or a teams pit can tell you a ton of information when you know what you are doing. I might be hard to identify a team's drivetrain while they are on the field, but standing next to a robot you can identify a good number of details. Drivetrain details are particularly useful in figuring out what happens when you get into a pushing match with their robot.

I like to walk the pits between matches to check out the general feel of teams we are allied with and going against. With a little experience you can figure out when a team is having trouble with a robot. If you have build guys that are twiddling their thumbs it is a great opportunity to volunteer their help. If you don't have spare manpower it is useful to adjust the individual match strategy.

It was mentioned earlier, but it is also a good chance for diplomacy. Remember that you are representing your team when you are wandering the pits. Behavior that is not in alignment with the spirit of gracious professionalism not only reflects on you, but on your team as well.

Depending on how many students you have working for the scouting team, I think it is safe to skip pit scouting in exchange for getting a student watching every single robot every single match. At least run pit scouting at a lower level, because numbers from match scouting is much easier to parse into useful information.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

We are back to our basic 2014 scouting system with added tweaks. You can see two workshop sessions on how we set up our scouting and what's important here. Our scouting system whitepaper is here.

This year we are trying to implement a more quantitative measure of defensive effectiveness based on score differentials from predicted scores. We also use a separate set of "superscouts" to evaluate qualitative robot data in a ordinal comparative fashion across an alliance.

We'll be looking for effectiveness in crossing specific defenses and goal scoring. We'll have to see how defensive strategies evolve. I think these might depend in part on rules interpretations by referees.

Re: Scouting 2016
 

We pit scout in two ways. First we get pictures so that our drive coach can remember the bots during our draft sessions and to settle any issues about physical traits and parameters after the fact. We have a phone app that organizes the pictures.

Second, we look for very specific traits. In 2013 it was adding blockers, in 2014 it was adding inbounding and testing with a stopwatch on inbound time. In 2015 it was "cheesecake cookability". Don't know this year's yet. But we found it was a GREAT opportunity to get to know other teams. We think they appreciated that we had very specific requests and requirements. And we found opportunities to help other teams. We now dedicate 1-2 mentors to just working with other teams at competition.