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I'd argue against asking teams what they can do in favor of watching practices and matches.
The state of a team's robot is likely to be in flux. You might get info that is several hours out of date, since modules on a robot are blowing out or being added.
Also, who you talk to on the team is important for the reliability of information. Some team members will know the real deal; others know only the team propaganda.
Quantitative info is better than qualitative info.
How fast are you? Fast/medium/slow
is not as good as
What is your top speed? ___ fps
And this last question is better determined by a stop watch in the stands than asking even the lead engineer. He is more likely to tell you a design number than a real number.
Also remember on asking teams for info, they may be in the middle of putting their stuff together for their practice/inspection/match and you are the 56th scout to ask them for info in the last 15 minutes.
Although you can certainly do some scouting during unpacking, we tend to scout at about 7:00-8:00 pm on the practice day. It's so much more informative and interesting to actually look at the robot than to ask someone about it.
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