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Unread 02-12-2012, 20:32
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AKA: Mr. Aaron Bailey
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

Quote:
Originally Posted by dcarr View Post
What are successful ways to motivate students to do a quality job scouting (both quantitatively and qualitatively) when they do not think their work will be used in the alliance selection process?
Let them be fans of the game, not just their own team. My College and Pro football teams are having (had) bad years. Making penny bets with family members or creating fantasy leagues helps keep the interest up. It can work with scouting groups too.

Challenge them to make a pick-list and give bragging rights to the scout who picks the closest to the actual draft.

Once the picking is done have each scout predict the elimination bracket including number of games per match and score (Similar to an NCAA bracket) Cover dinner for the winning scout.

Consider a head scout a 5th member of the drive team. Give it some prestige and have a member of the drive team come to the stands between matches to discuss their thoughts on the upcoming match.

Keep in mind that scouting can have a long-term payoff too. When my non-graduating team members tour the pit and evaluate the success of a design they are also expanding their engineering and best practices knowledge base. We encourage team members to jot down notes and take pictures of interesting robot features. I also encourage them to try to figure out how it works before asking for a tour of the robot features.

Robustness is a key attribute, and generally one or more robots will not survive the elimination rounds. A side bet on which robot will need to be replaced first can be interesting. Rooting for a robot to break is in poor taste, but while looking for candidates you are inadvertently making a list of teams that you might be able to offer mechanical assistance to.
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