Team 25 has finally moved into the future. For as long as I've been on the team, since the '04 season, we've used regular paper scoutings sheets + a filling bin...yay for that.
But after getting frustrated with having over 1200 sheets of paper to store, etc, by the end of 2 regionals, we've finally moved over to a paper/computer system.
Yes, our scouts do record information on scouting sheets (one for the match, one specifically for autonomous)...then that data gets fed into our amazing Scouting Program for analysis, output, and just about everything else under the blue moon!
This year I happened to notice that about 5 of us Robotics kids were in the AP Computer Science Class, and I figured, what a neat way to get hands on experience coding Java & we'd get a really neat scouting program. Regardless, we worked tirelessly with the help of Shoham & Mrs. Morris (our computer science teacher who spent loads of time designing + perfecting it), it was done in time for the NJ Regional.
In addition, we have 2 video cameras taping matches and a photo team that gets pictures of every robot. These are fed into Google's Picasa for labeling, viewing, and searching.
We pride ourselves on the fact that about 95% of the data we collect is pure statistics, leaving out a significant portion of error and uncertainty that occurs with opinionated scouting. Luckily, I've got about 8-10 people that work hard and long all through the competition making sure we have accurate data, footage and pictures.
When the system was finally put into use at NJ & Las Vegas, it proved to be incredibly successful in helping us find the best robots, and also for helping to develop strategy for rounds. At both regionals, we made our scouting data available to any team who wished to take a look through it.
So yeah, we use computer + paper scouting. Paper means we always have a backup. Computers mean we have amazing speed & efficiency when looking up information. I don't think we'll ever look back
