[Graham Donaldson]

Originally Posted by Dylan Gramlich

On SparX we write down scouting information on our "scouting cards", these also have pictures of the robot on the back. We then input the information into an excell spreadsheet which organizes the data very nicely so that we can then narrow down our choices if we are picking.

We used Greg Needel's Excel program last year (worked very nicely, got us into finals at Palmetto *cough* 50% Scouting *cough*), but the problem with Excel is input is slow (you have to manually go from box to box) and navigating through all the spreadsheets for teams is time-consuming. With Access, we can create a drop-down menu for all the teams, and customize the tab-advancing layout of the input forms (ex. what box you'll type in next when you press the tab key). We can also print out copies of those forms if we have to do manual writing, but I've been told by the team website/internet/server/email/technology in general guy that we can set it up, as I said above, with a live update so once they send it in it will go to everyone connected with permission to the server and has the file, which is easier than last year. We had a huge backlog by the end of the qualifiers day. We ended up only doing the rest of the inputting for the teams we would be facing the next day, and then scrambling to put the rest of the info in for the teams we would face in the finals with 95 and 16 as alliance partners (thanks again guys!). I'm hoping the Access program will work much better. If we see you at a regional and you have Access, we'll be happy to give you the file (not the info! Well, maybe- TBD), and again, I'll try to post it on Delphi when it's finished.


The Canuck