Quote:
Originally Posted by BJC
-Our team is old fashioned-we also use paper. We like to fit every team onto one page and file them away. Every page has probably 8ish matches per sheet so nearly every match of every team is recorded and filed. We have found that this goes a long way in staying organized when using a paper system. Theres no, "wait wheres team #### I though you had their 3rd match? Where is it?" etc.
.
|
This is in my opinion the best tip of all (hey it our system, so I am biased). The nice thing about this is you have a clear overview on a single sheet of how a team does. Doing 1 sheet per team per match will lead to 80*6 or 480 sheets to sort through from 40 teams at a District event. If you have a single sheet you can then review 8 or so matches at a glance. Each team has a sheet, thus we have 40 sheets at a district, 64 at MSC, and 80-ish at the championship. Much more manageable, and more importantly Actionable! Here is our Championship sheet from last year. It only has 5 matches, but this covered through Friday, and gave really good trending data.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2370
Teams frequnetly remember their best matches and believe that is their "Average" performance. A team that we are good friends with asked us to pick them because they could score 11 balls in the home zone. We had a frank discussion with them about their consistency. I showed them their sheet. Yes, 1 match they scored 11 balls. It was the only match they scored more than 4. Most matches they were under 2. If you just looked at their average, around 4/match, it wasn't too bad. If you ignored the one good match, their average was closer to 2.
By the Championship, we had a "Summary box where we summed up attributes. Passes and scores and hangs were summed into a metric we called positive actions. This was an wonderful indicator of total offensive capability, and a good initial ranking metric. Talking to a scouting team I admire a lot, they did something similar, but weighted the passing as not every passed ball scored.
*****************
As far as qualitative goes, we use it for judgement metrics. A qualitative how fast 1 2 3 4 5 tells me a lot more than they can go 12 FPS in high gear, but spend the entire match in low and look slow.
*****************
Remember, the most important part of scouting is having actionable data. Data your comp team can use in their matches, and data you can use to make a good pick list.
Ask yourself, what is important for your team to know strategically about partners and opponents?
What does your team need to know to make a good pick list?
Pit Scouting:
What ideas is your team looking for to make your program better?
Instead of how many wheels, how about
:
How do you tension your chains?
How do you hold position with mechanism X?
How do you control the motion of your arm?
How do you clutch your gripper?
How did you decide to use that particular material?
I would love for 1 weekend if my pit-crew didn't have to answer how many wheels the robot has. See, they are right there. They are the round things touching the ground...
***********************
This system picked 23/24 teams in elims at the MSC last year. Your mileage may vary.