[Squillo]

I was surprised at how little data it used. I signed up for a few extra GB, in advance of our two regionals, but found that even using my phone AND my computer (the USB modem also uses 3G/4G data, it's another device on our share plan) for three solid days used less than 0.5 GB of data.

The one student who had no available data filled out paper forms and others took turns putting the data into the online form. It really didn't take very long and they didn't mind.

We now have a pro data analyst who has been doing some analysis of the FIRST data feed from all of the competitions, and next year he is going to work with the kids to do more different kinds of analysis, and refine our scouting processes. He and I were comparing our outcomes after the Hawaii Regional, and we both agreed that BOTH kinds of data - the purely score-based, quantitative stuff from the feed, which can provide OPR stats and the like, AND the more qualitative stuff that we got from "eyes on the field," along with more specific "This Robot Can/Can't Do This" (which cannot be gained from the match data alone, since it is alliance-based, not individual team-based) are necessary to get the whole picture. This is great stuff for the students to be learning and we're going to do more next year. For this year, it was a good first step to show them just what can be obtained and gained from having the data, and how it can be compiled and analyzed to produce useful output.