View Single Post
  #10   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 10-03-2014, 15:51
Steven Donow Steven Donow is offline
Registered User
AKA: Scooby
no team
Team Role: College Student
 
Join Date: Apr 2010
Rookie Year: 2009
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 1,335
Steven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond reputeSteven Donow has a reputation beyond repute
Re: Actually the best pit scouting questions

Generally, I think the best pit scouting strategy (that is, something that should be done every year regardless of the game) is all the drivetrain details and a picture, as well as overall ratings (assuming your pit scout is a knowledgeable person about your team's robot and strategy/robots in general). We also generally note what type of shooter/intake a team has.

This year on 125, we used the notetaking app Springpad* in order to supplement our scouting. I can't imagine how our scouting would have gone without it. We have a 'note' for each team we see throughout our district events, each tagged with the events they are attending (not just the ones we see them at-we got a bunch of pictures from Granite State last weekend).

Did it help? Boy, it did. During our Saturday night scouting meeting, it was great to just quickly pull up a picture/info on everyone's computers/phone. Even better was when discussing our second pick with our alliance partner, we were able to quickly pull up a picture of a robot when they asked, 'which one is that again?'.

I hate relying on anything more than pen, paper, and an excel spreadsheet for scouting, but this really has me considering changing my mind. **

*We used Springpad over the much more popular Evernote due to the fact that it has an unlimited upload rate. We very quickly ran into Evernote's 60 mb upload limit after <20 pictures at Granite State

**Of course, for Pine Tree/NE Champs, I very likely will probably end up printing a 'journal'/book of all the pictures we have; I'm an FRC Scouting luddite

Last edited by Steven Donow : 10-03-2014 at 15:57.