[Jon Stratis]

Getting multiple teams together for scouting is definitely a great idea, and something my team has led at the MN regionals for years. We utilize a spreadsheet with a couple of macros to help enter and collate data - you can do the data entry from multiple computers and merge later, or use paper sheets to collect data and have someone dedicated to entering it into the computer.

The team goes home Friday after the regional and spends some time digesting the information and preparing a letter for teams - We print out a cover letter explaining our scouting method, and a list of the 25 "top performers" in each area based on the data - for example, there might be a list of the top autonomous scoring robots, another of the top truss shooting robots, another of the top catching robots, and a final one with the top goal scoring robots (defense is usually hard to quantify, but we sometimes try to include it if we can). Saturday morning, we then go around and hand the letter to every team at the regional, sharing our scouting data - and every year there are at least 1-2 teams in a picking position who walk out during alliance selection with nothing more than our scouting sheet!

I would strongly encourage you to take your collaborative scouting one step further and formalize a way to share the results with everyone at the regional, especially the rookie teams!