[BenHildy]

Our programming department created an app this year that was quite different from our one last year. I'll explain both, because both have their positives and negatives.

Last year we had a system where we used six cheap tablets that stored the information taken on them locally. They then simply programmed the app to contain a button that, when pressed and connected to wifi outside the arena, sends all of its info to the cloud. This worked quite well, but the major negative was that, if a tablet goes through an error or runs out of battery before its local information is sent to the cloud, we would lose that data. Not good when that happens.

This year we tried something new by having each tablet be connected by a long cable directly to the "control laptop," where our scouting lead monitored the data and was sent to storage as it was recorded after each match, later to be displayed in Tableau. This is certainly easier than the wifi complications, but if a cord becomes disconnected for a match, we lose that data too.

Overall, there are many ways to scout using technology, but sometimes the most reliable can still be a good old notebook and pen (which is what I still use for Qualitative Scouting)!