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Unread 15-06-2015, 20:03
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FRC #3138 (Innovators Robotics)
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Re: Strategy Sub-Team

Quote:
Originally Posted by Citrus Dad View Post
I agree. The last two years we have done extensive pit scouting on a couple of elements that couldn't be discerned from the stands. Last year it was pass through time and reliability because many teams weren't doing this enough to get a good measure (and we walked around with a watch and clipboard). And this year of course we were looking for the ability to add cangrabbers. Perhaps the biggest plus was being able to get to know teams about a specific issue. We both got to know how amenable they were and also just simply connected. We now intentionally try to come up with a specific pit scouting task like this.
Ya, we had the weirdest pit scouting questions last year (out of pit scouting questions we've been asked). They were mostly about drive team experience. For example, we asked how much experience the drivers had, how much practice time they had with that particular robot and drivetrain. Took note whether or not the coach was a student or mentor and how many much experience they had. A lot of that is valuable information. For example, our drive team is 100% students. However, when discussing strategies, there were numerous occasions where an adult coach would "bully" the other two student coaches into playing their strategy. If we noted that their coach is a mentor, we also send a mentor to the strategy sessions; not to really participate, but to maintain a presence. We've found that if another mentor is present, those problems tend to go away. We also ask questions about what the intent of the robot (specifically worded to extract intent of the design). That way, we are able to juxtapose that with how they are doing (and if they are performing to expectations).