[Shu Song]

If you are really motivated and want scouting to go really smoothly, here's what you do:

Get a group of around 10 students, or number of teams at regional divided 3 or 4. Assign 3 or 4 teams to each of the students and give them a specific set of questions to ask and things to look for, like drive train, capping ability etc. Have your scouts go to the teams and ask these questions of the other teams. make sure they have the info by the time you need it. Also have them watch EVERY match that their teams are invovled in and take notes. Iterate to the scouters that the information is exteremely important to a good alliance pick.

Create a database on a computer or laptop using mysql or MS access to store all this info in on friday night, day before finals. Go over some top picks with scouters then and finalize your decision after prelims are over.

Take it from me, as part of a massive scouting crew trying to scout out 74 teams at Canadian regional last year, having a system at all makes all the difference.