Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

We're playing with unreasonable numbers either way, but I feel like I should point out that your fuel tank can indeed extend over your bumpers so long as it starts within your frame perimeter. The only mandatory volume loss is the volume of the bumpers themselves (but for that matter the battery and other required components).

In terms of scouting it, your first general pass won't need to be very specific. You might just write Low/Med/High on the forms and wait a few matches at your event to help your scouts get a feel of each and set standards based on your alliance selection needs. One of the most useful metrics will be how fast an alliance hits 40 kPa and how much (cycles and which goal) a team had to do with it. By the time specifics really matter (District and Half Champs), the community will have built up a whole jargon for handling this, and your scouts will have the benefit of experience. Too often I see teams get overwhelmed trying to collect more detail than they need or are ready for and miss the forest for the trees.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

So our team has come up with a solution to this by scouting the number of cycles of balls rather than how many. Now, we also have made sure the scouter knows to specify if it's a big medium or small load.If youd like to see our scouting sheets I will gladly share it with you or anyone else for that matter!

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

I haven't thought this through in detail, but perhaps if the scouts monitor the pressure level before and following a dump, you can at least get an estimate. Of course, if somebody is feeding the high-efficiency boiler at the same time, this will cause significant uncertainty.

At a deeper level: It is difficult to see how the low efficiency boiler is going to matter in any significant way, unless a high boiler scorer is just a bit slower than needed to reach 40 kPa (and even then, it would be better to feed the high goal shooter somehow). (Assuming just the original 10 of 1 robot in auto), in order to get 40 kPa, you would need to put about 330 fuel into the low goal in 105-135 sec, which means about 3 per second if you want to climb the rope. As the low efficiency boiler only has a capacity of about 50-60 fuel, and processes it at a maximum rate of 5 per second, this means that you make about six deliveries of 60 fuel about 20 seconds apart from each other. Honestly, that's way more impressive than a robot that can deliver three deliveries of 50 fuel into the high efficiency boiler every 45 seconds.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

I think a lot of this conversation is ignoring a potentially important data source:

TBA API

The match endpoints in the API will have the 2017 game score breakdown. What exactly that will be is still TBD, but given past breakdowns, and the fact that high and low goals need to be separately tracked, the API should have an accurate scored count.

If you have 1 bot doing all the low goals, you can get an accurate count, same as if there's only 1 high shooter. Then have the scouts approximate the contributions when more than one bot is scoring in a goal.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

I don't think this is just a low goal issue, while it won't be impossible to count high goals scored it will certainly be difficult. In a high level match we're probably going to see upwards of 120 balls scored and that point I don't think it makes sense to ask scouts to count each ball scored.

The smarter move would be to ask scouts to count missed shots only instead of those scored. Also if you could get truthful pit scouting information about the ball capacity of a robot.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

I have talked earlier this year about qualitative scouting, this may be the perfect time for it. Keep in mind, at best scouting a team is an estimate. If you can approximate certain aspects of the game and back solve to get the variable (balls in goal) this shouldn't be too difficult. Keeping a count on team cycles, approximate balls scored (and where), and an approximate accuracy should lead to reasonably accurate data. The most important thing is to have a strong basis for comparison that is consistent and you have confidence in.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

Tracking the number of balls a team can hold in their robot, approximate % of that load they can get in the boiler, and the number of cycles they do in a match will help. I think it would be ridiculous to try and hand count every ball that goes into the boiler. In order for this to be effective you'd need to do pit scouting / good use of observation.

Just my thoughts.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

I couldn't agree more, this year scouting seems to be more about the confidence you have in your data than anything. Of course we will see how it all shakes out after the first week or two. My initial thoughts on fuel calculation followed the methodology of using approximation and back solving. And frankly there are only certain 'zones' of fuel scored that are important: if they score (when and where) and if they approach/exceed the 40kPa of pressure. If your window of certainty is narrow enough while still allowing for the inconsistencies of scouting then you should be in good shape.

Following the kPa changes is a good method of doing it, especially with robots that score in 'unique' goals, and it may very well be the most accurate method. However I see it has one fatal flaw in the big picture; the lights on the field denoting kPa are relatively difficult to see accurately and are themselves sort of an approximation. If one was to use the scoreboard to keep track of kPa you have a more accurate data source but lose valuable 'eyes-on-field' time.

It is my belief that approximating groups of 10 balls scored by a robot in a goal, the robot's approximate make percentage, and the number of cycles is the best way to solve this problem. Keeping track of 600 balls individually is a fools errand, it will not be fun for those doing it and kind of defeats the purpose of FIRST. This is a sport, it is supposed to be fun for those playing and spectating.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

SkyeHawk check your PMs :)

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

For the high goals, my team had the idea of counting how many balls missed, rather than how many went in. This, combined with a measure of how many trips the bot can take, would make for an accurate representation of that robot's strength.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

We're currently breaking it down into scenarios, most of which cause ball numbers to be a non-issue:

1. Nobody does balls: easy.
2. One team does balls: use the API.
3. One team goes high, one low: Still, just use API.
4. Multiple teams go low, 1 or 0 high: Pit scout maximum carrying capacity, make best guess on percent of maximum dumped.
5. Multiple teams go high: This is the tough one. Try to get a good angle, and take your best guess.

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

This is not a bad way to go about it, it is probably the most logical, least amount of work on the end user, and simplest to denote in a form of some sort. it does have quite a few moving parts. The most accurate/least-work way will be to take use the total amount of balls and try to solve the overconstrained system, similar to OPR, but that is never truly accurate as well.
One word of caution, the API sometimes take a few minutes for the match to update, this could cause an annoying backlog of paper slips, complicated implementations utilizing a network link, or editing of data within an app. I would spring for clear communication among the scouting team and use the values that appear on the official score at the end of the match. This always happens prior to the next match and you solve most of the negative points of the API at the cost of another user input.

I am thinking rough multiples of 5 or 10 balls should provide data with a reasonable degree of certainty. the fewer buttons that have to be pushed or tally marks to be made the better. Eyes-on-field = more better.

Regards,
Skye Leake

Re: [2017] Accuracy of scouting boiler goals...
 

This. The number one mistake I see in scouting is teams collecting a lot of detail that they don't need. For scoring, we are going to try to keep a count of cycles with general categories for number of balls in each cycle. We are hoping to use the scoring data from each match to get the amount of fuel scored and divide that up among the teams on each alliance based on our observations. The fallback position if this proves to tough is to use a scale (probably 5 points from awesome to bad) and cycle time as a proxy.

In any event, collecting relevant data is a great thing to do scouting wise. But in my experience you also need to have scouts making subjective judgments and recording those. Things like "they get in their allies way a lot" or "the driver adapts well to changing conditions on the field" or even "wow that driver is amazing." Over the years this has served us well in finding good alliance partners and in picking good strategies against opponents. I recall one year when we were the first pick of a really good team who refused our suggestion for the second pick because "we don't ever pick teams with mecanum drive." The mecanum drive robot was picked next, and proved to be the decisive factor in our loss to the other alliance. To their credit, the team that picked us came over to our pit as we were packing up and said "We really should have listened to you."