Scouting => Intelligence
 

Ok. This is something that i wanted to bring up, and i finally have gotten around to it.

I don't like the word 'scouting' Everything else that first has is very professional. (3ds Max is real software, inventor is actually used in the world for design, not to mention how 'real' the robot is) But, scouting seems so ahhh.... boring and not important. In fact, one of the most important parts of busneiss is to find out what your oppoents can do. Yet, in first, scouting is much overlooked. Many people put hours and hours just watching and talking to other teams. Yet, this important part of every team does not seem too important to anyone else. But... i think that a name change would help to make this important department seem more 'real'. (Not to mention how much cooler it would be)

So, i say that we change scouting to Intelligence. This name describes what we do much better, and makes are very important roll seem more important to others both on and off the team.

So tell me what you think. Because scouting is not really a part of FIRST, in order to change the name, all we need to do is for the people in scouting to begin to call it intelligence.

BTW: 'Director of Intelligence' or 'Asst. Director of Intelligence' is way cooler than <boring> 'Head of Scouting' </boring> Whats scouting? - asks a non robotics person

So, as i said earlier, post what you think, or at least vote in the poll.

Andrew S (Director of Intelligence for Team 201 The FEDS)

what do professional sports teams do? They scout. They don't gather intelligence. Intelligence makes it seem all secretive. Scouting is describing what you are actually doing. You are scouting out what the other teams do.

You FEDS can have intelligence:D

We used espionage for ever, but then we had to change it to scouting cause espionage had a "negative" attitude

scouting in sports is done for lots of reasons... one reason is to sign a player... another more common form of scouting is to prepare your team for the strengths and weakesses of your opponent. (think of football players spending long hours disecting the game film of this week's opponent)

both cases have this in common: you're evaluating someone or something.

and isn't that really what we all scout for as well? on 180, our scouting crew doesn't just scout our opponents. we also look at our alliance partners, too. heck, we even scout ourselves... it's great to know everyone's strengths and weaknesses, including your own, so that you can make an informed decision when it comes time to make up a strategy.

in short, scouting is a fine term... it isn't broke and it doesn't need fixing.

George
S.P.A.M.
Team 180

I didn't say to use espionage. I would say that really is "negative." Espionage, i think, is stealing or spying on other teams. IE: Finding out the design on another team before ship dates. I don't think that Intelligence has the same tone that espionage does.

Yes Orge, I do know that sport teams 'scout' but... they scout looking for new players. However, as I said before, in business they don't scout (or look to take other's products) they gather intelligence about other company's products and try to learn from them to make thier product better.

As i said in my first post, not only would changing the name make it sound cooler, but it also would describe what we do better.

Do they change the word book from book to knowlege inhancemetn? No. Why? It describes and is already acustomed into the ways of the world. Same for scouting. You might change one team, but there are over 600 others you need to change too.

Inserts two cents into machine and let's the fun begin...
 

Ok I guess I can begin by saying that on Team 88 we scout teams with the goal in mind that we attain all of our competitors strengths and weaknesses to device a strategy(hence we call it strategy team). The team is composed of the back up drive team and other highly qualified members of the team that know the rules of the game to the highest degree. Throughout the competition EACH member of the team is given five robots to scout therefore the strategy team that night can go over the strengths and weaknesses of each robot and reduce the info to an index card. From the qualification rounds on three main strategist are working in the pit at all times. One to make sure where the team is ranked at all teams. Second one to watch matches all day and pick out the best bots. Third is the PR person. I believe as a strategist the most important job is to work YOUR OWN STRATEGY. Many teams will try to persuade you into trying a strategy that isn't beneficial for your team because they are asking you something that you simply cannot do. However, when you possess this much INTELLIGENCE you should be able to develop a STRATEGY that is beneficial for both teams. So in conclusion "I will say that you can have all the scouting and intelligence you want but if you can not work a strategy that involves both you and your alliance partner against your opponents then you just wasted your time. Not only do you need to know what they are doing you need to know what they are going to do to you and how you are going to stop that."

I like the term 'Intelligence', and agree that it gives a better conotation to the group. Now, if people are willing to preserve my sanity a bit more this year, and an Intelligence team is finally formed, I will try to have that name used.

Hmm no matter what you decide to call it id have to say it is one of the best parts of FIRST. I was a driver one year and you hardly get to meet the people and scouting/intelligence lets u interact with people.

Intelligence isn't a verb, it is a noun.

The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.
The faculty of thought and reason.
Superior powers of mind

Scouting is a verb.

To observe and evaluate (a talented person)
To search as a scout: scout around for some gossip.
One that is dispatched from a main body to gather information, especially in preparation for military action.


There is your answer: No.


Wetzel
~~~~~~~~~~
I had good, bad and horrible English teachers.
Thanks Mrs. Bratten

Ok wetzel, i guess i never thought of it that way :)

But... i'm pretty sure that scouting can also be a noun.

"I'm on the scouting team" (or whatever english term that is, but i know that it isn't a noun)

I guess it is quicker to say that "I'm going scouting" than "I'm getting intelligence" But... the way ppl slur verbs, they both sound ok.

In the end, i think that intelligence just sounds cooler. I wanted to know if others thought so too. Of cource, i can't force you to change the name, but i thought that i'd throw this out there.

I must agree w/ Evildoughgrl334 thought. Intelligence (or scouting :) ) is really one of the coolest parts of first. I think that i've met more ppl that way then i ever would have being a driver.

Three cheers for the way cool intelligence teams!

Yeah. What Todd said.
 

Scouting is what we do. We have two lead scouts who help run the whole scouting crew and are responsible, in part, for evaluating data. Then, above lead scout is the title "strategy coordinator" who is in charge of the whole system, is the interface between all scouts and the drive team and enters alliance strategy sessions along with drivers. What's so unprofessional about any of that? I was an athletic coach for 10 years. Scouting was perhaps the most professional part of what I did in that arena.

scouts?
 

Whats all this about scouts?......................... we just release the pit spies, they come back with useful information, even occasionally the oppoosing alliance's planned stradegy for the next game. But you must always dispurse misinformation.

yeah...
 

Just a little thing about scouting strategy.......

As a person who did a lot of the pit scouting last year, I would say that just talkign to the teams and findign out their strengths and weaknesses are best determined by 3 things. Type of Drive (motors, gear ratio, and f/s) Second their type of ball system, (how many balls at once how many they can story, and also look at it your self and see how feasable it is to pick up balls.) 3rd what do you think of the robot? what is your oppinion? A lot of teams exagerate the capibilities of their robot even if they are your ally.

As I like to do, if you want a full database on robots, i would refer the our great allies of last year... The Feds. They guys have pictures, and developed a program for documenting how they preformed on the field, (and also what they were told I believe).
i believed they used the program in excel (equasions).

We on the other hand, organized in note cards. Much faster process of getting information, but does not look as neat and if you do not organize it, it can be a disaster.

Tyler

We got used to that word in Portuguese, so that's what we use instead of scouting. It does sound negative, but I see no harm. Plus, no one actually knows what it is. At least, until now...
DOH! :D

scouting
 

If you are on the drive team you should scout. A problem many have is that they heavily investigate their opponent and trust their ally. Every robot on the field with you, you should know all of its motors, its pneumatics, its electrical problems,

Ok. I'm not sure that you all are getting the poll right. It isn't to change what scouting does or who does . It is just to change the name of scouting to intelligence. I think that it just sound cooler. :)

In the world of engineering just because something is cool, it doesn't mean it works.

My point? Intelligence sounds cool, but it isn't practical, as it is only a noun. Scouting sounds fine, and it's a verb and noun in one.

If you wanted cool, then why not "espionage", "pit spies", etc?

I must admit, 'pit-spies' is pretty cool. And, as i said before, i just wanted to know what other teams call their intelligence (scouting) teams. Ya, scouting might be practical, and i'm sure quite a lot of people like it. But, personally, i think that a cool name is sometimes better even if it isn't as practical.

Well... what other cool names do other teams call their intelligence team?

scounting sounds cooler..
 

Scouting sounds so much cooler than intelligence.. you can't say, "Hey, I'm intelligencing team <insert your team number here>, and they look pretty good!" On our team, it is a great honor to be consitered a scout. You are either Competition Team, Pit Crew, a Scout, or a stand warmer. Our scouts do everything from talking to other teams, watching everymatch and becomming experts on all of the robots there to judging for our awards we give out to other teams. Whenever we are briefing the Competition Team, we have a Scout Expert for each of the teams we are against and with so we know exactly what we want to do.... Scouts are a vital part of our team... as well as the intelligence they gather. So what I am really trying to say is.. Scouts are the way to go, intelligence is what they gather.

I really don't think we should change "scouting" to "intelligence" because it sounds too much like some CIA operative. It doesn't really matter what you call it, as long as it works for you...

I don't agree with changing from Scouting to Intelligence. If scouting does get changed, I think it should be changed to something other than intelligence. I don't mind calling it scouting but I would mind calling it intelligence.

Scouting-Intelligence
 

I personally think that the whole idea of changing the name scouting to something else is completely and utterly ridiculus. First of all I think the name Intelligence makes it sound like it some kind of secret mission to get information from teams. Second of all the term "scouting" isn't the official name, people just use it commonly, so to make an official name for it is just plain stupid. Teams call it whatever they feel like, like that one team that used to call it espionage. No offense to Jack, whose idea this is, but you try and make everything to official. For example your little rules on scouting through CD. If someone doesn't want to spend half an hour e-mailing every team they need to scout when they could just post a thread they should have the right to do so without being scorned. I don't think FIRST is about rules and regulations, except for the robot and the games, but its about individuality. So while I'm sure some people like your ideas and suggestions, don't make them seem so final or official, because to some people they aren't. I'm not trying to sound rude, just trying to voice my opinion. So please don't take out what I am saying on my team, they aren't saying this, I am.

Actually, from what I've read, the poll seems to accurately reflect the views expressed in this thread.

Personally, I think the name should be changed to the Intelligineerify team. It sounds cooler than Intelligence, and serves just as little purpose. ;)

yep, that's what the last 30 posts were saying.

[edit]sorry, just saw that it was new & an old thread. I think all comments have been said by now ;)

Post Count
 

Actually Jack, mine was the 4th post in the thread in the last 2 days. It actually wasn't a dead thread.

espionage is way cooler than both of them!!!

For what its worth...
If you really want a word that applies more accurately and conveys the correct context in terms of engineering (since engineering is a lot of what goes on here) I would use the word "research".

For the last two weeks, I have been researching all the potential strategies that different team or robots might employ. In my job (as an engineer) I frequently research different companies that I might end up paying for their services, or that might be competing with a product I develop. I might also research a user group to see if something I want to develop might have a market (but now I am diverging into marketing).
So the gist of it is that what we are doing is researching our potential allies and/or opponents. The other aspect of research is that it implies learning. Things that you research this year will change next year's design.

Research is both a verb and a noun (as well as an adjective).
You want cool, you can become the "research specialist" - in some companies this is a highly paid professional. You can also be part of R&D - Research and Development - the guys who actually get to make up the cool ideas that the rest of the engineers turn into real products.

I can agree that scouting is not as exciting as [gathering] intelligence, but the term intelligence is not really used in engineering in my experience.

* gets off soapbox *

PS: Guys, I know you are still in high school, but you can show your intelligence by reading what you typed and fixing at least the gross mistakes and typing errors.