Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts

[LeadU2Fun]

In regards to scouting, can teams who have successfully promoted themselves to scouting teams provide some feedback? What were teams looking for? Are there general qualities that are consistent year to year? This year we had a robot that scores in autonomous, scored during teleop, and balanced well. We made every match and didn't have technical difficulties. Because of losing matches like 30-17, 22-39, 31-13, and 29-27, we didn't make it to tournament matches. I'm looking to find out how teams effectively market for an alliance pick when they encounter a situation like this. Thank you in advance for your gracious help.

[Randomness]

Originally Posted by LeadU2Fun

In regards to scouting, can teams who have successfully promoted themselves to scouting teams provide some feedback? What were teams looking for? Are there general qualities that are consistent year to year? This year we had a robot that scores in autonomous, scored during teleop, and balanced well. We made every match and didn't have technical difficulties. Because of losing matches like 30-17, 22-39, 31-13, and 29-27, we didn't make it to tournament matches. I'm looking to find out how teams effectively market for an alliance pick when they encounter a situation like this. Thank you in advance for your gracious help.

It is hard for an alliance captain to remember each and every team (especially if they are a member of the drive team or do not have a strong scouting program.) So one general tip is to be distinctive - for example, Team 100 is a bunch of orange people with a decorated robot and the funny hats.

I haven't seen your robot/any matches, but I know that talking to potential alliance captains in the pits - preferably not 5 minutes before alliance selection - can get you noticed and remembered as well.

[LeadU2Fun]

Thank you for your suggestions. I was thinking about creating a business card with our team name/number with all the important aspects of our robot that my students can hand out to all the teams. Maybe one team would bring it with them to the alliance selections. I would think consistently making matches would be important. Anything else year after year that teams would look for?

[The Lucas]

Originally Posted by LeadU2Fun

Thank you for your suggestions. I was thinking about creating a business card with our team name/number with all the important aspects of our robot that my students can hand out to all the teams. Maybe one team would bring it with them to the alliance selections. I would think consistently making matches would be important.

Many teams make handouts with their robot picture, features and strategy (ours look similar to the robot page on our website). I think these can be effective if used correctly.

Do NOT run around the pits handing these out 15 mins before alliance selection. Before I was involved in strategy, my role was pit crew. I remember accepting dozens of these handout while we are checking the robot for elims. Those handouts are wholly ineffective then. I was busy with the robot and had no input to the scouting team anyway. The scouting team is busy with finalizing the list and cant look at handouts.

I think the most effective time for those handouts is the first day of the competition. When pit scouts come around to ask your pit crew questions, give them a handout. That is a chance to communicate your message clearly, and probably the best chance to get your message into that team's scouting folder or database. Also train your pit crew to effectively answer scout's questions. Our scouts have some training about things like drive trains, but many are not personally familiar with the intricacies (many of our scouts come from non-robot build subteams like web).

Also, if you see some reps from high seed teams looking around your pit on Elim day, then engage them in conversation and let them clearly see your bot. I know many teams send more mechanically inclined scouts (possibly from their pit crew) to look at potential partners features (e.g. drive train, bridge manipulator strength, overall build quality).

What Christopher (Randomness) said. A distinctive team/robot is always a very good thing to have. Team 100 is a prime example of this (Gotta get me one of those hats one day...)

To add on to this list, you want to make sure you are known by other teams. This is the huge social aspect of FIRST. Talk to teams often. Very often. Go around the pits every once in a while and talk to people. Make friends. Get to know the team members, and robots, very well. Getting on a FIRST name basis is also great, with team members, and the robot.

Not only does this make your team look good, but it also opens up so many opportunities. Working well in alliances, alliance selections, and even future team collaborations. 256 is currently in collaboration this year with 2489, because their team leader (BeltSanderRocks) and I became friends on CD, met at an offseason, and became good friends.

My final, and favorite tip: Be a strategist. Literally write down winning strategies and scenarios with you and other teams. I make a few hundred each year, and they become ever so helpful. To be able to go up to a team and say "We would work well together because of X, Y, and Z, and if we do 1, 2, and 3 we will win every match ever", is one of the largest selling points for teams. Don't tell someone you'd be good with them. Show them. Use statistics, logic (Nerds love logic), and even give match examples of you two working together if possible.


Great thread idea! I can't wait to learn from what everyone says!

[EricH]

Be honest about your team's robot. An assessment like you gave in this thread, with more specific numbers (say, "we balanced X times in Y matches and didn't attempt the other Z times"), would probably be just about perfect. Or if there's a minor technical issue that you fixed and started performing better on the second day.

But if you stretch the truth, and the scouting team of the team you're talking to spots that, then they'll have the real data, and that can make you look bad to that team. That'll probably hurt your chances of getting picked.

And yes, be proactive. Stop by sometime Saturday morning--if you're on the bubble that might be enough to get you scouted one last time before picking.

The real fun trick is to talk to the rookie/sophomore teams who are in prime position to be picking--they may not quite know what they're doing, so they're the most likely to remember that "oh hey, team XYZ does this stuff, let's pick them". But, be careful with doing that... they may or may not be making a good choice to advance out of the quarterfinals.

[legogeek24]

Along with everything else that has been said, I'd like to add a few more points. Something that's in the back of my mind as an alliance captain is what team do I know is willing to work with me? As in, there are always teams out there who are pretty intent on doing their own thing. What makes an alliance exceptional is teamwork and the ability to work together and adapt, and I always want a partner that I know will stick to the strategy and be a good team player.

This goes along with making friends; I make it a point to network as much as possible throughout the course of the competition. The practice field is valuable too; 3456 practiced double balancing with several potentially high-ranked teams early in the competition and even practiced tripling.

Finally, accentuate what makes you unique. Tell teams why they want you over another equal or slightly better team. For us, we made sure to document that 1) we were one of only 3 teams in the competition to triple balance, 2) our driver has 3 prior years of experience, with 2 ending in driving at Championships, 3) we have a unique drive train that is extremely effective at balancing, and 4) we can clear balls from under the bridge effectively. Even though we scored very few balls the entire competition, we were picked three times during eliminations for our balancing! I think the main reason for this was our distinctiveness and networking. I'd recommend coming up with a list of unique traits that will make you stand out. The third pick robots, especially this year, can become extremely critical to success in eliminations.

[LeadU2Fun]

These are awesome ideas! Thanks for the feedback. We always stuck to the plan our alliance agreed upon but how are you able to quantify that to scouting teams? Also, sometimes that hurt us. One of our losses was 9 to 10 because we were doing the coopertition bridge that we were on but the opposing alliance couldn't get up the bridge. In the meantime our alliance team was supposed to balance the red bridge and never did it. The extra 10 points we had demonstrated in 3 other matches would have won that match. Is that how you quantify that you are good at teamwork and executing the agreed upon strategy? I appreciate all your suggestions!

Originally Posted by LeadU2Fun

These are awesome ideas! Thanks for the feedback. We always stuck to the plan our alliance agreed upon but how are you able to quantify that to scouting teams? Also, sometimes that hurt us. One of our losses was 9 to 10 because we were doing the coopertition bridge that we were on but the opposing alliance couldn't get up the bridge. In the meantime our alliance team was supposed to balance the red bridge and never did it. The extra 10 points we had demonstrated in 3 other matches would have won that match. Is that how you quantify that you are good at teamwork and executing the agreed upon strategy? I appreciate all your suggestions!

When I am looking at teams for potential alliances, I look solely at the team, not the win-loss-tie record. That's how many great teams do it, so I've adapted it and it works quite well. Most people look only at what you do. I don't care if you lost match 17 34-26, I care how many of those 26 points you scored, by what means, and what YOU did. I don't care what your alliance members did, and for the most part, I don't care what your opponents did (I do care sometimes).

All in all, nobody is going to look down on you for loosing a match, or for something your alliance members screwed up on, and if they do, there are obviously better alliance partners for you than them.

[LeadU2Fun]

It didn't seem to matter at our regional. I don't know if teams weren't recording those stats. I know that the match you talked about we scored 16 of the 26 points. I'm seeing that I need to quantify all of our stats and get them out better. Some teams selected for the tournament only scored 2 pts and had history of technical issues. They did feed the balls during autonomous to the #1 robot but that was an easy recoding after alliance selection that we could have done as well. One problem I am seeing is that we relied on the idea scouting teams would see what we could accomplish. We will definitely be more proactive next year! Great feedback from everyone!

Originally Posted by LeadU2Fun

It didn't seem to matter at our regional. I don't know if teams weren't recording those stats. I know that the match you talked about we scored 16 of the 26 points. I'm seeing that I need to quantify all of our stats and get them out better. Some teams selected for the tournament only scored 2 pts and had history of technical issues. They did feed the balls during autonomous to the #1 robot but that was an easy recoding after alliance selection that we could have done as well. One problem I am seeing is that we relied on the idea scouting teams would see what we could accomplish. We will definitely be more proactive next year! Great feedback from everyone!

....That match was hypothetical. i made it up. What you are describing to me doesn't seem accurate. I am in no way calling you a liar, but there are some things you say that don't look 100% accurate. I have never seen a regional where the not as good robots are chosen for alliances over the good ones.

Also, that is a great goal. Be proactive next year. You can't rely on the other team's scouters. Go up and show them yourselves.

[MrForbes]

As an aside, you might also make sure your team scouts your own team's performance as objectively as you scout the other teams...then you'll see where you fit in, and you'll get a better idea of how other teams see you (assuming they are doing performance based scouting).

I talked with the scouting people on a couple of the higher seeded teams, they definitely were looking at the field performance of the other teams, and basing their alliance selection largely on that.

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

....That match was hypothetical. i made it up. What you are describing to me doesn't seem accurate. I am in no way calling you a liar, but there are some things you say that don't look 100% accurate. I have never seen a regional where the not as good robots are chosen for alliances over the good ones.

It happens all the time, I don't have any recent examples but two that I remember from a few years back, 2007 Boston Regional team 1919 picked a team with their first pick who had not scored all regional, and another team with their second pick who had not only not scored but had been penalized multiple times for a net contribution of -30 points. All three bots had netted a total of -13 points through the qualification rounds. Many better scorers were on the board at both of their picks. Notably 125 placed the 6th most rings at the regional and was picked by the 3rd seed with their second pick.

It even happens to good teams, 47 made a mistake with their second pick at Championships in 2005 picking a bot that was averaging 1-2 tetras a match when there were many better scorers available.

SOme times it is a mistake, sometimes it is bad scouting, some times it is due to teams picking friends instead of the best alliance available, all in all it does happen.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256

I don't care what your alliance members did

While I completely agree with your point, there are situations where you can gather a lot of information based on what a robot's partner does. At Wisconsin this past weekend, 2169 routinly had their third partner block inbound passes, play defense on fender scorers and other smart strategies. From this, we learned that 2169 was a very smart team that scouted, understood strategy, and could lead alliances. It does take an experience scout/group of scouts to pick up on these things, though.

[LeadU2Fun]

Jim,

We don't have the student power to have our own "scouting team" yet. It would be interesting to get those stats from one of the large higher seeded teams. Do you know anyone that has them. We followed teams we knew personally and saw them get picked even though it didn't seem like they performed on the field and had technical issues. When we were alias in a match they tipped easily trying to balance in coopertition since they had never balanced. We had multiple balancing bonuses and a coopertition balance. But the quantifying statistics by team would help. The android app only added up the alliance scores for each category for each match the team was on and not the actual performance of the team. If you know anyone that has them it would be nice to see and use as a training for my team to do scouting next year. Thanks.