Attn: Teams w/ a Scouting DB

[Jack]

Hello all teams.

I'm Andrew Schenk (aka Jack) with Team 201. As many of you may know, Team 201 has made an Index of other Teams Scouting DBs.

I have a simple question for you right now. If you team is going to put some of your scouting data on the web, please contact me so that I can include that page in our index of DBs.

If you team is not planning to put data on the web because they don't have a site/space or they don't know how, but would be willing to do so, please contact me. I would be willing to make a page on our site for your team's data. If would clearly state that the data was collected by your team.

If you have any other questions, or would like to talk about having you data added to our FBI Scouting Index, please either pm or email me. (webmaster@feds201.com) Also, visit www.feds201.com to see/use the system.

Remember, scouting is soooo much better when you share.

Thanks,

Jack & Team 201 & US FIRST

[darkcreature]

I think we should find someone who can program for PDAs, and consult with them, PHP programmers, IT guros and everyone come together to create the ultimate central scouting database (not saying that SOAP's is not nice) but use good tools PHP, Apache2, MySQL, and Jakarta and such to make something extremely nice for everyone to share and use...

P.S. If everyone would be so kind and fill in their info for Team930 at <a href="http://bfganimation.sytes.net/"> BFGAnimation.sytes.net</a>
Thanks

[Joel J]

Originally posted by darkcreature
I think we should find someone who can program for PDAs, and consult with them, PHP programmers, IT guros and everyone come together to create the ultimate central scouting database (not saying that SOAP's is not nice) but use good tools PHP, Apache2, MySQL, and Jakarta and such to make something extremely nice for everyone to share and use...

P.S. If everyone would be so kind and fill in their info for Team930 at <a href="http://bfganimation.sytes.net/"> BFGAnimation.sytes.net</a>
Thanks

To be quite frank, the scouting system that I will frequent will be one integrated with CD--its a hub for first activity, therefore it would get the most data about teams. Whenever a link that says "Scouting" shows up on the nav bar at the top of each page, I will use it.. frequently.. regardless of where it leads. Jack's scouting index, and the soap system is nice, but scouting has gotten to a point at which I don't want to enter my information into countless scouting databases, the majority of which will only be used by the team(s) that created it. [/rant-esque]

[RogerR]

Originally posted by darkcreature
I think we should find someone who can program for PDAs

take a look at this
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=18829

[Brandon Martus]

I really like 201's idea. I hope that more teams with scouting databases participate.

They are more or less a scouting portal. They provide an easy way to get to everybody's (that participates) scouting system. You get the best of all worlds, on one easy to view page. You can then go off into other peoples scouting data, systems, etc., if you wish. It's nice, because as mentioned above: teams don't go and submit data to every scouting database. And, not every scouting database has info for every team The FEDs provide a central point to access a teams data on many scouting databases. They pull all of the scouting data together, in an complete and organized fashion.

I hope that more teams participate. There are no losers here. Your data is still credited to your team, but it is also backed up by other teams' scouting data.

[AJ Quick]

I am all up for creating a centralized scouting website, I would love to be in on that. But, I don't believe such a thing can be accomplished in a short time, and should be put off for next year.

[Mike Soukup]

Originally posted by darkcreature
I think we should find someone who can program for PDAs, and consult with them, PHP programmers, IT guros and everyone come together to create the ultimate central scouting database (not saying that SOAP's is not nice) but use good tools PHP, Apache2, MySQL, and Jakarta and such to make something extremely nice for everyone to share and use...

Great idea, but are you willing to work hard to accomplish it? Some of us have tried for years to reach this goal, but have failed. Hopefully someone will eventually succeed. Here are a few tips if you're serious about trying.

- Obviously it's a huge task, so get ready to work your butt off.

- Try to get as many people & teams in the 'inner circle' of decision makers. The first year I did WASH, Wildstang chose the data fields to collect, but the next year we got other teams involved in the decisions. Because of that we had better fields and more people were happy with the end product. But the more people you have the harder it will be to make the final decision. Figure out how to fix this problem. Maybe you should study how some open source projects operate before starting.

- Plain & simple, if the scouting standard is 'owned' by a single team it will fail. I can't say exactly why, but it will. Deal with other teams enough and you'll soon understand what I'm saying. Maybe the reason is that others are reluctant to join another team's effort because the other team will get all the glory.

- Leave your ego at the door. One of the biggest problems I found in trying to get scouting systems to work together is that people have a lot of pride in what they created and think it's the best - which is understandable. They are reluctant to change anything. Be willing to accept that someone else has a better idea or application and either use it or improve on it.

- Aim for interoperability. Come up with a set of data that you'll gather and a method or standard format to share that data. XML seems like a good choice. That way anyone can 'plug in' their module (PalmOS, Pocket PC, web app, etc) and start sharing data.

- Learn to be a good salesman. The two years that I worked on WASH, I loved the technical aspect of designing and coding the PalmOS app and the database, but I despised trying to 'sell' the product and get others to use it.

- Most people don't understand how difficult this project is. It's not something you can accomplish in a week, or even a month. It's an entire systems engineering project. You need to design the system from the ground up and then create requirements for each module.

I like what Jack and everyone at 201 have done so far with FBI. At first I was turned off when he listed the data he was gathering and told everyone to use it or else, but it looks like he has changed his tune.

Good luck to everyone who creates a scouting tool, I hope it's successful for you & everyone who uses it. If you really want to come up with a scouting standard, go for it. If you need help, ask the CD community and I'm sure you'll get a lot of volunteers.

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by AJ Quick
I am all up for creating a centralized scouting website, I would love to be in on that. But, I don't believe such a thing can be accomplished in a short time, and should be put off for next year.

http://www.feds201.com/forums/team.php?mode=list

They already have it going.

[f22flyboy]

I think you already have this one

[Jack]

Ya...

I'd just like to say what went through my mind from the beginning of the season to where I (team 201) is now.

I know I was trying to start the 'Offical Scouting Standard' or whatever... It was an attempt by myself to get people to have data that was all the same so it could be sync-ed between the different online DBs. But, as we all know, that isn't ever going to happen. I also remember from last year trying to find scouting data on a team. A lot of teams had some type of data online. But they were all at different sites, and it took a long time to find all possible data on a team.

/thanks brandon for the phrase scouting portal.

Thats exactly what I'm trying to do. Just make something that branches off to other sites. I've also included a few other things in the FBI system. (btw: FBI = FIRST Bureau of Intelligence) I'm not sure if i really like that. A team member though of it because we're the FEDS and FEDS, FBI.. sort of go together. (I'm thinking about FSP = FIRST Scouting Portal) ... but all that doesn't matter (the name I mean).

As I said in my first post, if you could give me a link to your scouting data, please do. All I ask is that the link some way restricts that data that is seen. (either by team or by event... I don't want to redirect a person to a page with all 800 teams listed) Also, If you can't put your data on the web because you don't have a site / know how... but would like to, talk to me and I'd be willing to make a page where the data could be viewed. (of course all credit for the data will be given to you.) OR... try contacting another team to see if they would host it / make it in a format that can be uploaded to an existing scouting db. Please, don't let you scouting go to waste. Share it w/ first.

Finally, there are a few other features with the FBI system. There's a simple poll section (if anyone has ideas for more/less fields please contact me), a way for people to leave open comments on a team, and finally, a team profile section where a team member can have a 'profile' on their team. All features except the profile can be used totally without needing to register.

k... I think i've said enough (I don't know if what i did say even made sence )

Bottem Line: Share your data. While there's nothing to force you to share data before you can view team info, please do. The more data that's in a system, the better the data will be.

Also, If you have any comments about the FBI Scouting, please contact me. I'm willing to make just about any change that you think would make the system better. (email: webmaster@feds201.com) or PM

Thanks and let's make this the best year for scouting so far,

Jack & Team 201 & The avgerage FIRST Scouter

[Jack]

and now...

if you go:

http://fbi.feds201.com/201
or
http://fbi.feds201.com/47

you will be taken directly to that team's page.

You can also just go http://fbi.feds201.com and you will be taken to the team list.

Much thanks to Brandon Martus for the idea and assistance (or rather telling me what to do ) in making this very usefull addon.

[Ken Patton]

This is a great thread... it captures the potential and the problems that those of us who are interested in scouting must deal with. Even though we all agree that collaborating will make things better for everyone, we all want to use our own set of fields in the database. I know that has been our biggest problem in collaborating in the past with the great efforts of the Motorola people (the ones who WASH with SOAP ). Last year I swore to myself that we would for sure work harder to collaborate... but here we go again with our own set of attributes that we care about. Mike Soukup's comments were right on imho.

So we too (team 65, or GMCIA if you want to get brand-specific) will be building a scouting database (in fact it already started when we brought a crew to Cleveland to learn our new Palm templates using ThinkDB). It probably wont be on the web in any flashy form, but we will use it extensively for our alliances.

I'm looking forward to the day where great scouting collaboration at nationals makes divisions unnecessary - so the best qualifiers can pick anyone.

Maybe next year...

Ken

[Jeff Waegelin]

The best part about this? It's run by you- the scouters on FIRST teams everywhere! We're just managers of the data. Sure, we'll provide our own data, too, but it's all up to you guys out there! You can make FBI succeed through cooperation... and isn't that the real spirit of FIRST?

[Jack]

I'm going to be sending out emails soon to the teams who competed at the regionals over the weekend to see if anyone would be willing to give data. What i'm going to be looking for is any thing above simple match results (which can be found on usfirst... well, mabey )

I'll be taking any format that you give me, and will submit it into the feds comment section with all credit given to that team. You don't need to give me any data that you want to keep for your team, just as much as you would like to give to first.

If you would like to submit your data, please email me at:

webmaster@feds201.com

or else you (or someone else on your team) will be receaveing a friendly email from me soon begging to give data to help the entire first community.

Also, if you wish to put data on your website, just send me a link and i'll include it in the list.

Thanks all,

Jack & Team 201 & The avgerage FIRST Scouter

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally posted by Jack

But, as we all know, that isn't ever going to happen.

I disagree....some will be synced hopefully before the season is through.