[Som.Rocks]

Our team places large emphasis on scouting, not to say that others don't; however, we have at least 7 people in the stands and at least 6 pit scouting. Let's start with the pit scouting. Some discount this and regard it as a very unhelpful and biased method. Be that as it may, if the correct questions are asked, pit scouting provides very beneficial information. Based upon the condition of the pit, one can determine the organization and efficiency of the team. Now, as for the questions I would ask, make sure to choose those that a team must answer without bias. General questions like, "What kind of wheels do you have?" can help to establish a good idea of the maneuverability of the robot. The speed question lends itself to opinionated influence if the exact speed in ft/sec is not known. So, many teams may say, "fast." However, you and your pit scouts must take this with a grain of salt as all teams want you to pick them come eliminations and being fast is an attribute many want on their elimination teams. Follow up questions could be, "How many obstacles has your robot traversed today?" or "Which obstacles do you prefer to traverse?" As I said before, try to find questions that prevent the team being interviewed from being able to sway their answers from the actual truth.

Now, on to stand scouting. This is what has gotten us to the finals in 2 state competitions. At least 7 scouts are necessary. 1 lead scout who holds the binder (I'll get to that in a second) and 6 members who watch the robots on the field. You can definitely train more scouts in to rotate them so no one gets burnt out; however, it works just as well to have the same 6 scouts. Now, we use paper in massive 3 ring binders. We divide the teams by two. So, we have roughly 30 teams per binder and each binder has 10 premade scouting sheets per team. This helps out the scouting team so they don't get burnt out as quickly. The binders are lifesavers. At the end of the day, our scouting team can easily look through the binders to determine our match strategies for the following day. They are also really helpful in creating preliminary "pick lists" for eliminations. The lead scout has another duty on our team. He/she must communicate all necessary information to the drive team for the coming match. By necessary, I mean that info regarding the ability of the robots along with the ability of the drive teams must be included. Not included would be random bits of information like how the team loads their robot onto the field (<-- as a really bad example).

In conclusion, a mediocre robot has the potential to make it very far into the elimination rounds if that robot's team has a spectacular strategy/scouting team. On the other hand, a great robot can easily drop out of the competition if the strategy/scouting team doesn't do so well.

Hope this helps! Good luck scouting!