[IKE]

I would like to give the absolute minimum for scouting.
1. Have a list of teams and write a couple things about each bot. Start with a description ex. Team####:RED and White Kit chassis with big Arm This is best done by walking around the pits on practice day or Early Friday morning. Make sure you get notes on everybody!
2. Watch a lot of matches. Initially write down match number and all the bots in it. Try to look for bots you will be competing against later as it is most important to get notes on them early. After a while pay attention to those that do not have any comments about them. Also pay attention to effective and ineffective strategies.
3. Before the awards on Friday, go through your notes and add a note about performance to each bot. If you don't remember them, head to the pits and look at the machine again.
4. Friday night make a pick list. Make sure it has 24 teams. If you think you have any prayer of being a top 8 team this is extremely important. If you think you might be a first round pick, this is extremely important (the picker may not have a good pick list). First do a coarse sort. Great, good, eh, and no-way. Picking out the greats are easy. Picking out the no-ways is generally not too bad. Sorting goods from ehs is the tough part. What you will likely find is that you can make a list of about 20 machines you like, 8 you don't, and 12-20 that you really aren't sure what to do with. The bad thing is that these are the second pick group for the Top 4 alliances and are very important. If you can't pick, go in first thing Saturday morning and decide on those last 4.
5. Watch more matches Saturday morning and refine the order of your list better. Make sure that you focus on all 24 slots.
6. Clean up your pick list and send it out with the selection captain. You want to make sure that only positive things (or at least not super negative)are on this list as they may have to share it with their new partner.
This will actually work reasonably well. There are better methods, but this can literally be done with 1 person.

This year is unique in that the human player plays a huge roll in the game. Ideally you want to have some scouting data on human players as well. This is too much for 1 person to watch, so I would go around the pits and ask how good their payload specialist is. Remember, few will actually l"ie" to you, but most will tell you that they can repeatedly do whatthey did in their very best match. No one at Kettering made more than 75% of their Moonrocks on average, but many felt that they were shooting around 90% (remembering that time there was a dead robot in front of them and they went 12/13). It really isn't lying as much as selective memory.

Good luck!