[Q. Sheets]

What I've found in hosting a community scouting system is obtaining information on teams' robots and the general results of a match (alliance scores, bonuses, penalties and team DQs) is relatively easy.

Getting others to submit information on individual teams' performances during each match is where the issue lies. Every team quantifies the data differently. And then getting them to take the time to submit data for each robot in each match is a bother. I've tried.

For example, take the 2011 BAE Systems Granite State Regional. There are 87 qualifying matches which means 522 individual performances to record. And then with all the other events during the same weekend, the total is brought up to 503 qualifying matches (3,018 performances). Then someone/something has collate the inputted data and output it in some sort of structured format; this is a lot of work to do for something that may or may not be viewed depending partly on if the team attends another event that season… Unless you can get the turn-around rate high enough that it can be used during the same event, then more power to you.

I also cannot stress enough the fact that many teams still use pen(cil) and paper for scouting.