600 members in 24 hours?
 

Hello Everyone!

The Scouting Pit is open and I need your help!
www.scoutingpit.com

Over the past couple of month's I have dumped hundreds and hundreds of hours into a new network for FIRST. I am graduating in 3 weeks and want to showcase my work to potential employers.

So the goal:
600 users in 24 hours.
Facebook did it back in '04. Now its FIRST's turn.

What does it include:

team and user profiles
a full commenting system
youTube videos
event stats
pretty charts...

and much more to come in the next few days.

The scouting pit will be whatever you want it to be,
so please let me know what other features you would like to see.

Good luck in these last few days of the build season, and see you at the competition :)!

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

598 to go, looks good so far

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

How do you register? For some reason I can't seem to find a button that lets me do it.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Neat site, posted a video of my team and whatnot.
Some obvious things need fixed though, but I'm sure you'll get 'em in no time. :D

- posting comments can be a bit tricky. ie: clear team comment boxes upon posting

- clearing the video sharing box when you close it. it will only clear if you refresh.
^^^ the reason I wanted to redo it was because I couldn't remove tags.

- shared videos show up on all teams pages? Not sure if this was intended.

Connect it to facebook. I had to do it twice.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Any way to update team info? We're rookies so there isn't anything out there on us.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

in about 15 min or so there will be :)

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Any way to add a team?

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Add team feature is now on the teams page.

Also you should be able to add to register with your team now!

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

It seems that you have to have a facebook to join D: Is that correct?

I don't have a facebook, but I would love to help out.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Do you have a gmail account?
I've thought about supporting google auth too.

... I've also considered twitter, but if you don't have fb i doubt you have twitter

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

This looks really cool. I wish you the best of luck with it.

Just from playing with it for a little bit, I wish you could click on the team number on someone's page to go to their team's page or events or things like that. Also, I went to my team's page to put up something for the picture part (assuming that's what it is) and there doesn't seem to be a way to do it... is this coming in the next few days?

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Yeah I have a full photo system, similar to how youtube videos are handled. I just have to figure out one little thing with the photo upload. This will be how team photos are uploaded.

Some of the linking is still broken, so thanks for pointing out the one on the user's page, and I'll def have a link to a team's events on the team's page.

Thanks again for the feedback

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

It's not letting me connect.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

The first time you login you have to authorize with facebook. Every other time you click the connect with facebook button you stay right on the page. I will be adding a keep me logged in button shortly.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

well, then I can't do much. I can comment (maybe) on other's comments but nothing else. Is this normal or is it just screwed up for me?

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

you can upload youtube videos,
check out, add or edit your teams page.
teams pages also link to analysis of team's stats.

The way I look at it The Blue Alliance is awesome if you want to go back and see how a team has done,
and chief delphi is great for finding out information. I am not trying to replace what either of these sites offer,
I am trying to provide a different perspective: The team's and robot's. I am trying to fill the gap that is usually overcome by handing out team info sheets at competition. Why not have it all in one place, so that information is actually useful, and you can also quickly evaluate if a robot can actually do what they claim. Info sheets get glanced at, tossed, and then burned. Scouting Pit pages should be looked at prior to every match to quickly evaluate your competition and alliance's.


Feature's coming soon:
full picture service
robot pages
FRC FMS twitter feed updates

if you look at team's stat's there's a few helpful charts there for scouting. This info will be switched over to 2011 come march, and provide real time updates.
I am working into linking into the 2010 twitter feed for right now to provide even more information.

The tool is designed to allow you to quickly evaluate teams you are about to go into competition with. The 2011 data will also allow me to evaluate robots based on minibots, peg scoring, and hopefully autonomous if first supports the twitter feed i proposed.

The hope is to have a pre match tool, where you enter the 6 teams competing and it gives you a hint of what's to come.

I am also working on an alliance selection tool. It seems that alliance's often win and lose based on their 3rd pick, and that is where the most mistakes are made, and where tradition pit scouting actually interfere's with helping them find their best option. I will provide a tool that evaluates your team's needs the potential contribution of all remaining teams. This should help you make the most informed 3rd pick possible and not miss that gold mine team because you were too busy flipping through scouting sheets or excel pages.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

I have both a gmail account and a twitter account, but I'm not sure that it would be worth the trouble of changing everything...

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

I'm loading a white page. :/
EDIT: Never mind. Signing up.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

you say there's a register team button, but I can't seem to locate such a thing

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

you have to be logged in to see it.

are you looking for add team or register team?

add team is found on the teams page.

register team should show up on your homepage after you login.

takes a little while to load the first time. but your browser will cache it so it should be faster in the future.

I am looking into supporting twitter

Thanks again everyone for the support and feedback

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

So I've logged in, signed up, etc. I'm looking at the home page and don't see a register team button, and when I tried to look up my team (1379, been around since 2003) they weren't there, and I don't see any button for adding a team either.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

I think this should be fixed now.

Team registration is on the homepage once your logged in.

Team add is on the teams page right next to where you search.

Also after you login now, you don't have to login every time. You'll be logged in when you come to the page again on that computer.

thanks for your patience, you've been a huge help

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Hmmm...honestly, I like the idea but REALLY dislike the implementation. It's extremely slow and renders poorly on Chrome Dev 11...

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Thanks for the feed back. I was concerned with a lot of this too. The site contains quite a bit of delighters and maybe its time I started to scrap some of them. Honestly that map on the homepage is quite a pig, and will probably be replaced with a pic soon. The second thing that kills the system is the render on the team and event pages. I have an alternative in mind, and maybe it's time I implemented it.

I was hoping some of the exclusive features to the system would outweigh the speed, but it doesn't seem as though user's are using them yet as its all old data. Once the FRC FMS system launches, there will be much more and better data available for me, and it will be reflected in the functionality in the system.

I'm also considering deploying it as a desktop application which would have some distinct pros over a web app.

Also note the first load is brutally slow, its the nature of having a big app. However after the first load, it should cache and be sufficiently faster.
I'll work on banging out a core version to the site, and hopefully its more to your liking :)

Honestly its the worst feedback to hear, but the best feedback to get.

So thank you!

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

I try to keep the facebook apps I use to a minimum. As such, I am hesitant to sign up (nothing personal:) ). If you implement google accounts, that would be a great addition to the site. Could you possible use CD accounts as well??

On IE 8 it loaded just fine. Nice and quick. The little interaction I have thus far has been great. A quick, clean interface that displays what you want, where you would expect it.

I hope this takes off soon...

BRAVO!!!!!

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

:-D thanks!

yeah I wanted to place a disclaimer that I only use facebook for authentication. Everything else is proprietary.

Trust me, building a commenting system from the ground up was a pain, but I know people like to keep the fb and first lives separate.

I'm glad you are having a positive experience with the UI too.
Chrome can be a nasty little browser which is why many pages
don't officially support it.
I'm glad to hear it works on IE (i develop on a mac so I wouldnt know)

It seems to work nicely in firefox and safari too.

I am still going to develop the core app for chrome and android.
(its a little sad that they get grouped together)

regarding google accounts I have looked into supporting it, and I will do a little more research, and I agree openid would be a nice alternative to facebook. The one nice thing about fb though is that it's people names, so
it acts as a first line of defense, anything to make moderation easier seeing as I'm the only one developing this :)

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

For all of you who want a faster site:

http://scoutingpit.com/core.html

I hope you like it! :)

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Its been attempted before, but any website like this that requirs user-generated information will simply not be worthwhile. Not enough teams will enter thier picture and information.

One thing that should be address is "if my team scouted every match, what does this site add/ why should I look at this site if I watched every match" The teams that don't scout and could use this site aren't the ones on CD and thus won't know about this site. The teams that are on CD and would know about this site have some sort of scouting system that is probably better than just looking at match scores and then creating some statistics.

I'm not trying to be a wet blanket, but I think there are just too many FIRST-related sites that spring up because someone wants to make a website opposed to fulfilling an actual need. I think there is great promise with this site but at least for me (maybe I'm not your target market), I don't really have any reason to sign up and use your site. Find that need and I think you will have great sucess.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

The new site seemed slower to me this morning, but it might just be me. As far as "creating a need," I had the idea of doing what TBA does: pulling robot pics off TIMS. If there was a way to do the same thing for video, that would be good too.

Think of this as an information site, not a scouting site. If your first event is a week 4 event, this is a tool to get the first 3 weeks of data from.

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Oh, then may I suggest a different name? ;)

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Thanks, this was a great piece of feedback. The idea was to attempt to reach a critical mass, something none of the other sites have achieved. After watching the launch I have gained several insights, first off that people aren't led to the value of the site, the scouting tools. Right now you have to dig down pretty far to get the information, and I NEED to fix this.

Regarding scouting, every scouting system can use a double check, and thats what the scouting pit acts as. I believe it has good scouting tools, they just arent being found (Bad Design Flow :( ). Right now people get to the site and say oh facebook for first, whoopidy dooo. The real value is in the level below, and I need to work it to the top, which I am working on right now. The real value will be in the live match updates and stat updates. I have an algorithm that takes the twitter feed and find a teams peg contribution, minibot contribution, and total contribution. Unfortunately a lot of those useful features won't be available until march when competition starts. (I have been in contact with FRC and am hoping to offer autonomous contribution too). I want it to become a quick reference so if a team is going into a match or going into alliance selection they can quickly check the information to make sure they didn't over look something.

Again the initial launch is more for working out the bugs and getting the site working the way people want. Come week 1 of competition, the tool value will start to present itself.

I'm sorry to hear that. This is a great idea! I am thinking about developing a standard youtube title for teams to use so their video titles can be parsed thus helping them to not have to upload the videos, but rather letting me find them on youtube.

Also as I stated in the comment above. The scouting tools aren't being found. I am working on the design flow to make it seem less like a facebook and more like a scouting site.

Haha, hopefully with a few quick flow changes I can show people the scouting value.

Remember this is just the core of the sight, there is much to come !

I wanted to give teams the time to get familiar, load info, and give feedback before competition starts. I am implementing new features quickly based on this demand.

Again this is your site, not mine... So just let me know what you want. If I can do it, I will!

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

Issues I'm finding:

• There are teams on there that are no longer teams yet teams that have been around for many years are not added.
• I added the team I mentor and it is still not there
• Whenever I pull up my profile it still says I'm apart of "FIRST 0"
• And I cannot edit my profile to show I'm a mentor

Re: 600 members in 24 hours?
 

I'm working on building a parser to fill in the missing teams.

I'm looking into the add team error. Hopefully I have a fix soon.

The FIRST 0 issues is fixed,
and you can edit your team number and role from your profile page now.

Thanks!