Posted by Tom S. at 1/29/2001 6:16 PM EST
Student on team #177, The Bobcats, from South Windsor High School and International Fuel Cells & ONSI.
In Reply to: The problem with scouting...
Posted by Trevor McCulloch on 1/29/2001 4:39 PM EST:
What we need is a table design that as many teams as possible can follow, this way if we want to centralize the data, all it takes is a simple import. The problem last year was that each team had their own method for collecting data, and obviously their table structures in their databases were different. If there was a set design for all teams to follow for their databases, sharing data would be a heck of a lot easier.
So... how about everyone starts posting what they think is necesary in a scouting report, and we can come up with a set of field names.
I'll start:
Ability to manipulate large balls (y/n)
Ability to manipulate small balls (y/n)
Goal balancing (y/n)
Speed (1-10)
Pushing Power (1-10)
Reliability (1-10)
This is what i can think of off hand, obviously there is more. Once we get a defined set of things we want, we need to come up with field names for the table designs that we suggest everyone use. If we can work together on this... i can gurantee we'll have less work to do in that hot florida sun
Tom
: The problem with scouting this year is that now people are using
: technology more and more as a tool to solve the problem of trying to scout
: all the teams they *need* to know for the competition. Unfortunately, the
: methods used are leading us back to the way we used to do things earlier.
: In the past, each team would do it's own scouting of each and every other
: team. In the end, this led to a lot of unnecessary work. But if we
: coordinated scouting between teams, we could reduce the work load for
: everyone by centralizing and sharing data. And thus was born the scouting
: system.
: Now we have a different problem: everyone wants to have their own
: scouting system. If everyone creates their own system, then we create the
: same problem we were trying to solve by creating these systems in the
: first place: to centralize and share data. What really needs to happen is that
: we all need to decide on *one* solution, and use that. Right now, we have
: a myriad of diverging formats: some use MS Access, some use MySQL,
: some use dead-tree format. One system collects one set of data, another
: collects a different set. We need to settle on one set of data and one
: format to put the data in and a method to transmit this data between
: different teams at different events. Without addressing these inherent
: problems, any sort of scouting database system isn't really a step forward.
: Trevor
: Team 349