Quote:
Originally Posted by jamie_1930
...To this date I have yet to find any of our scouting information useful during competition. It's much more useful, I find, to have a few good eyes out there watching the games and then before each match I'll discuss it with them briefly and find out if there is anything they've seen that I haven't or if they think we need to watch out or don't have to worry about at all. Plus for the past several years for scouting we've made up our sheets, and constructed our database, then at competition we make up a schedule and have every team member rotate in sitting there and circling in bubbles like they're taking a test instead of enjoying themselves at the competition. I think it be much better if we just did away with scouting.
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Usefulness of scouting varies with system, and I would say it is easiest to break into 2 types; pre-match scouting, specifically for relaying to the coach before matches, and long-term for in the event of being an alliance captain at a large tournament with many teams. Our pre-match scouting usually consists of one person seeing who we are playing next, and jotting notes for what the robots' roles are in the alliance, what to watch out for. Obviously knowing "this robot is very fast at back and forth defense" etc. would be useful in advance. As for the filling in bubbles, test-taking approach: yes, this is boring, and this is long-term scouting. If you were, say, second alliance captain; by the time your second selection comes, you may not know any of the robots that are left specifically, if they weren't standouts. This is where tallying those bubbles comes in; rather than sorting through a horde of strategic notes, all the tallies give you a cut-to-the-chase.
So yes, scouting is useful-knowing what they are going to helps driveteam confidence. To reduce tediousness, scout only the later matches and get a lot of people so you don't have to do it that much.