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Unread 18-02-2006, 10:00
Eugenia Gabrielov's Avatar
Eugenia Gabrielov Eugenia Gabrielov is offline
Counting Down to Kickoff
FRC #0461 (Westside Boiler Invasion)
Team Role: Alumni
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: West Lafayette
Posts: 1,470
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Re: scoting program

May I please make a very polite notice to the people who plan to host scouting programs?

I think your efforts are very good, and having done this in the past, I would just like to give you heads up to some of the difficulties you might face, whether you're the organizer of the program or you're just hosting it on your computer.

1) Internet access can be very difficult to get. At some highly wired regionals, such as BMR, it's easy to find, but in ATL it can be harder. Last year there was a nice area for wireless, but they didn't start letting people go into it for scouting (by the VEX) until later in the competition for some reason. I know some regionals had problems with that last year, though I don't know which one.

2) Data entry and collection does take a LOT of personnel, and they should understand very well what is expected of them. I love scouting, but it is not always an easy thing. There is a full-regional commitment. Sometimes one group or another gets ahead on the papers and the other group falls behind, so make sure everybody knows their responsibilities.

3) Decide whether or not you plan to broadcast your data to other teams as a service. Keep in mind that if you do this, your program must allow you to make certain things private. I'm of the opinion that while sharing is awesome, the purpose of scouting is for the success of your team, so you should be able to make notes that say "Team (insert team here) is probably not compatible with our strategy" as private notes. I don't encourage typing nasty things in these notes, because many people do see them if they're helping you with data entry, but the ability to keep some notes private is good.

4) Good luck! :-D Scouting is hard work, but it's awesome fun.
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Northwestern University
McCormick School of Engineering 2010
Computer Science

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