[Boltman]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I'll make 2 points. The first is more basic--you can use Bluetooth and cellphone data to transmit which avoids WiFi. See our scouting whitepaper. And we use tablets which can get through an entire day of scouting-you only need to charge at night. Plus the system is fairly reliable--at least as much as paper when those can get scattered. The final one is that it is much easier to communicate with the drive team in real time with an electronic system. (Scouting is about much more than draft lists.)

My second point is about philosophy. The point of FRC is not competition and winning; it's about education and training (which is fun in a sports setting). Having your students create an electronic scouting system is another educational opportunity. We have many students programming apps, servers and other devices. They learn about math and statistics. This has been one of the best educational opportunities for our team.

Agree, electronic collection offers another avenue of learning. In a way though today's kids are already overloaded with electronics and there is nothing wrong with teaching them to make observations, discuss strategies pre-match and learning to evaluate the entire team while taking relevant notes. In a way, simply getting away from electronics to do everything itself is a learning experience for them. One problem with today society is much of it believes an app solves everything. It doesn't. Many of these kids were born with various electronics in hand and lack the ability to evaluate manually and look beyond stats and at other clues not mentioned much on CD.

I see value in both aspects and one is not better than the other. So when the OP asks "Best way to scout" I don't take that as "best way to learn about statistics and app development" necessarily.

We all have ways that we think works and probably tweak it yearly... they are all learning opportunities. I go back to sample size and number of matches being an issue with heavy reliance on quantitative scouting. Most teams only play about 22 minutes per regional in qualifications and only against and with certain teams so I find that numbers are easily skewed base on pairings in any single event. I try to cut down data points... instead of what they can do what cant they do, an where do they prefer to start are a few observations we track.

In the end I use both methods one to validate the other and do look for learning opportunities for the kids. I think there is certainly room in app development to track things that aren't tracked in the apps I have tested. Many seem to track too much and at the same time not enough IMO. Cutting down the noise is good too and focusing a a few key areas seems to do fine. I do love the stats many post here kudos to them.