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Originally Posted by Just Doug
I think the basics about this game are pretty well covered here. So I'm going to throw in my two bits about pit scouting.
You get mixed signals on pit scouting when you talk to other people about it. Many mid to upper tier teams don't do pit scouting. I personally think this is a mistake, but then again I would also argue that most teams that do pit scouting are doing it wrong. The big problem with doing it well is that it is really hard to teach others how to do it.
The general question and answer session that teams like to do isn't terribly useful. Teams tend to tell you what the design goals for the robot is, not what the existing robot is actually doing. It not that they are intentionally misleading you, but that they are giving in to human nature and being overly optimistic. However, asking questions can be useful when a team tells you it can't do something. Teams tend to be telling the truth when they do that.
What is more useful is getting pictures of the robots, so you can put a face to the name, so to speak. Also a visual inspection of a robot, or a teams pit can tell you a ton of information when you know what you are doing. I might be hard to identify a team's drivetrain while they are on the field, but standing next to a robot you can identify a good number of details. Drivetrain details are particularly useful in figuring out what happens when you get into a pushing match with their robot.
I like to walk the pits between matches to check out the general feel of teams we are allied with and going against. With a little experience you can figure out when a team is having trouble with a robot. If you have build guys that are twiddling their thumbs it is a great opportunity to volunteer their help. If you don't have spare manpower it is useful to adjust the individual match strategy.
It was mentioned earlier, but it is also a good chance for diplomacy. Remember that you are representing your team when you are wandering the pits. Behavior that is not in alignment with the spirit of gracious professionalism not only reflects on you, but on your team as well.
Depending on how many students you have working for the scouting team, I think it is safe to skip pit scouting in exchange for getting a student watching every single robot every single match. At least run pit scouting at a lower level, because numbers from match scouting is much easier to parse into useful information.
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We pit scout in two ways. First we get pictures so that our drive coach can remember the bots during our draft sessions and to settle any issues about physical traits and parameters after the fact. We have a phone app that organizes the pictures.
Second, we look for very specific traits. In 2013 it was adding blockers, in 2014 it was adding inbounding and testing with a stopwatch on inbound time. In 2015 it was "cheesecake cookability". Don't know this year's yet. But we found it was a GREAT opportunity to get to know other teams. We think they appreciated that we had very specific requests and requirements. And we found opportunities to help other teams. We now dedicate 1-2 mentors to just working with other teams at competition.