Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

There will be a lot happening on the field. It's up to the scouting team/drivers/coach to determine what is important. In the past we've kept data on nearly everything quantitative. This year, I think pit scouting is worth very little. It all comes down to how robots can maneuver on slippery regolith and how accurate their Human Players are. I'd highly recommend at least 1 scout per robot, you may need two to keep track of both the HP and the robot. Also, your scouts will get tired, so try and rotate so that they get more interesting teams to watch, and the occasional break.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

I think you really hit the nail right on the head here. Human Player and driver performance are going to be, in my opinion, the two most important factors in this game, and you can't really find anything about either in the pits (maybe you can set up a target and invite teams to throw balls into it? Set up a FIRST combine :yikes: ) Also, like you said, there will be essentially 12 things to keep track of-each human player and each robot. Some teams will need a lot more disposable freshmen... :eek:

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

Maybe because we already use Wifi for programming, there should be some push to, at each regional, get a "server" running on a public WiFi where people can post up the data they recorded (as well as access this data)?

Just an idea.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

If you honestly think the human player will do alot of scoring you should really take another look at this game... try and simulate it with people as robots and garbage cans as goals, and use dodge balls as the moon rocks, you will learn quickly how hard it will be for the human player to score on these moving robots. Also take a look back at 02, the human player situation was very similar.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

hopfuely youre not the on that does teh writing in teh zcouting book

we've never really scouted before but thats cause my team was never top 8 in the regional but this year it seems like anything is possible, but the original post brings up valid points about the factors of this years game which will make it a very interesting competition (like always, lol)

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

Our results were not this conclusive. Our setup used trash cans with caster wheels underneath as the trailers and students as the robots. The rocks were represented by a combination of soccer balls, volleyballs, dodgeballs and basketballs. We did not have any Alliance Station or Outpost walls, but the Outpost players were required to stay in their chairs. With the number of balls we had, we allowed balls that rolled back to any of the human players to be thrown in again. This means we were probably throwing a bit more than 20 balls per match, but I would guess not more than about 30 at the most.

Our human players were getting about 2 to 4 scores per player per match with only 2 "robots" on the field per alliance. The most I scored in one match from the corner was 6 and the most one of our Outpost players scored was 8.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

It's going to be harder because only do they have to be concerned with the robot and the drivers but they have to be xoncrrned with the human throwers as well. It is a lot more to keep track of and more people to interview it is going to be very hard or one scout

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

I have to agree and say that pit scouting will not be as important as match scouting because there will be little use of arms and such. Not none, just little.

The questions to ask for pit scouting will obviously be if the robot can score on it's own. Also, can it store Rocks? Looking at the drive system, in my opinion, will not be too useful because you will not know how it drives on the field nor will you know how well the drivers are. I guess another thing to ask is if the team is tracking the goals or of it's all on the drivers. And autonomous, that's another obvious one, although it can be seen during a match.

For match scouting, I suggest having one scout per robot but then also having 2 additional scouts that will keep track of the human players, one for each alliance. I believe human players will play an important role this year. If anyone can check old scouting methods for '02 and '04 that would be helpful. I guess the main things to look at for a robot is maneuverability, trailer containment, and scoring on the go.

My 2 cents.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

Also keep in mind that there will be pinning. I human player can toss more balls into a stopped robot than the robot can do itself. I think that the two will be equal scoring.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

This is still the same point if you think about it.

By no means does any kid in FIRST have an advantage over anyone else because of athletic ability.

You want your team to go and do well? Go practice.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

A couple comments I have (covering some of the various topics in this thread). In terms of scouting personnel, I plan on working with (an)other team(s) (1747 and 1646 if they agree to) so that I can have 1 person looking at each robot and one person looking at each human player. Otherwise, I'll probably say just jot a comment on how the human player did.

As for human players scoring, since the robots will be driving on a slippery material, changing directions may be somewhat difficult. In the experiments that were done, were the robots making any attempts to dodge, and was it carried out on a low friction surface where acceleration (including change of direction) is limited? We put four rover wheels on one of our older robots, and it was rather difficult to turn from a stop (without the trailer). With the trailer, it currently won't move at all, but that's primarily because we don't have the right wheels, and the wheels on it are too tight and will not rotate (they're omni wheels and it's stuck between two rollers).

One issue in keeping track of the robot is to know how many moon rocks etc it has in its possession at any given time. This is because I'm sure that some robots will just mass a large number and dump them all at the same time. While it will be difficult to count preloaded balls, those who use this strategy will likely load the maximum of 7.

On a related yet unrelated note, I intend on using an access database again this year so I don't have to file information on say 63 teams (the number of teams in our first regional), although that may happen anyways. In all likelihood, I'll probably end up entering some robot data directly into the database while watching the match since I get my forms in bursts of about 5 matches.

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

The challenge is what makes it fun :D

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

I think it will be challenging but not too much more than previous years where human players had the ability to score. For us we usually have 6 students scouting each match and we rotate out the students throughout the day. Helps from keeping people from burning out.
Also to cut out the time of taking the data and analyzing it we just log it into laptops and have a centralized database that collects all the data. Which I plan on putting up on CD again this year.
I guess if the human players became a big enough factor we could add a extra scout for just human players. Also keep the amount of data reasonable. We only focus on the facts. Try to avoid data that could be considered subjective. So we would collect how many moon rocks did they score or did they grab a empty cell instead of are they fast yes or no. Just some thoughts. :-)

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

am I the only person who thinks that regardless of previous matches your human thrower will play an enormous part in how well you do. This is our second year so I was never in any other games that involved humans but when you think about it... You have three very close very slow targets and three (hopefully) fantastic shooters. Plus the orbit balls are really easy to throw. i have a feeling that this year will be different even though I can't speak from any experience.

Oh and not to mention that even the best robots will crash and burn if their driver doesn't know how to deal with the slippery surface

Re: Oh, boy, scouting will be difficult this year!
 

During a break I jotted down any item that I could reasonably want to keep track of, and I came up with too many things to keep track of simultaneously (e.g. not only how much does the robot score, but how much is it scored on?). The freshmen... mean volunteers aren't going to like this.