[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Jarren Harkema

Are you referring to pit scouting, where you ask teams questions about their robots? Or are you referring to field scouting, where you watch what their robot is actually capable of?

This year, I feel that pit scouting has very little value. Most teams will have practiced with team versions of a few Defenses, and some will be lucky enough to practice with all 8 of them. I think that a team's response is going to vary greatly from actual performance on the field. In fact, if our team is unable to find an official field to practice on before our first tournament, I'm going to push our drive team to be upfront with other scouters. If we haven't tested our robot on an official rough terrain defense, our people in the pit should say that. I'd rather our robot prove it's merit by showing its ability on the field.

That being said, there are a lot of data points to collect by watching a robot perform on the field. Focus on the ways a robot can score, and try to break those down into easy to define variables. As your team's robot is developed, think about the ways other robots can compliment you, or be a detriment to you, and record that information as well.

The way we do it is get eyes on every bot.... that is assuming there are videos, in person or watch prior matches...nothing replaces eyes on bots.

Then we look at collected statistics to either confirm or question what our eyes saw.

The pit scouting is a second layer of confirmation, perhaps they are working on something new. Or to understand more about what we already witnessed and to find ways to enhance play together. Same with the opponents we share info back and forth because you never know if they will be in eliminations later.

So instead of solely numbers, we put in the eyewitness accounts that show all the little nuances in play.

In almost every case we could predict the matches we would win or lose ahead of time and get the score pretty close too. drive team said how valuable the intel was each match.