Quote:
Originally Posted by benhulett
After reading jgannon's post about mentor built robots vs student built robots, I do agree with that. I never looked at it that way. I just thought that the majority of the experience gained would be through hands on work rather than watching.
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I agree, and this I think is a source of great divergence in philosophy among mentors and teams.
I've been on teams on both ends of the spectrum, and student-built robots are way more fun, and the students have pride and ownership.
Inspiration needs to come from this. Anything else is just a waste of potential. Student's don't learn anything from sending something out to get machined, and learn very little from watching a mentor do something.
On Scouting: I have my team's strategy team do what I did back in 2001: make an excel spreadsheet of all different teams and what they do, including observations. Does it tip? Does it have trouble picking up the ball? Is it slow? Can it hurdle well?
In the end the whole database has a concise matrix of fields on abilities and items of note, and the whole thing can be printed out, then shredded when the next version comes out.
2016 hasn't been in a situation to pick an alliance, but it's good practice, and we use the information in the qualifiers to see what we are up against and who we are working with so that we may adjust our strategy accordingly.