Its so ironic you should post this, cause just yesterday I was talking to Dan, on PAW, and I was referring to the matces with you and how in our first macthes I had to go and do the scouting, cause the other team wouldn't tell you anything, lol. Yea well you guys are my buddies! And the suppliers of the AutoDesk Slapbracelet's.

Yeah, even when other teams did give us info, your scouting binder usually helped us out more. I remember asking one team if their drills were locked into high or low gear, and they didn't know. I then asked them what they used the three sensors mounted horizontally on the front of their robot for, and they said that they were used for their dead reckoning program. That was pretty funny. Hopefully I'll see you at regionals or nationals next year. Where were you when everyone was packing up their robots? I went to look for you to say goodbye, but all I found was a box of donuts. And I almost ate them, too.
By the way, How many of those Autodesk bracelets did you get from me? I used to have a lot, and now I only have one left...:(

I was recording matches and eating before that, I wanted to stay, but my team wouldn't let me, bah on them. LoL. You coulda eaten them, I don't liek Doughnut. Senors for dead rek? hat is odd...o.O I dunno, most people are pretty nice to me about scouting, but then I retain all the info and do bad in my classes in school, cause all I can remember is heat wave goes 16 feet per second and stuff. I ended up getting 4 auto desk bracelete's from you, 1 from Bosch, 2 from Oak Ridge, 1 from a chicka on Oakridge, 1 from Heatwave 1 from 555, and 1 from MOE

okay, anyway, getting back on topic..

We use scouting to know as much as we possibly can about our alliances and opponents during qualifying. That decides how we'll play the match out to use everything we have. It also let's you know how reliable your alliance partner will be. (Watching the rounds scouting)
We also have scouts in the pits, finding out about the functions (and then they can watch and see if they are used), and how strong the drive train will be.

Then, come eliminations, the scouts and drive team can compile a list of the team's they think we would work well with. An important part of the alliance is if they compliment us (if we're in the top 8 that is) not just how high they're ranked. And of course the same thing about scouting your opponents in eliminations.

We have scouting sheets that we fill out, but we think the most important aspect is just having a feel for the robot. Why does it matter if they can go 20 ft/sec if their drivers don't know how to use it? So, that's how we do scouting.

If you read the next thread about forming a database, I think that would be great and save a lot of time that would otherwise have scouts in the pits. That way, scouts could simply WATCH, not have to worry about sheets, and get a good feel for a given set of bots. Umm...also on that note, I should probably put it over there too.
Would we be able to record how a robot did in the database after they competed in a regional? I think that would be useful to everyone...

I think we're one of the low tech teams because our scouting is done on papers in binders (that's when it's good)...or random sheets (bad!). So if anyone has a system they'd like to explain to me and show me how to use... that would be awesome! Private message me, or AIM Idreamincolor62

Anyways, there's my thoughts on scouting systems.