How many times do you scout a team???

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by zant1234

Wow thanks everyone...you have given me some good ideas for scouting, now I just have to convince my team to let me do it

All of this said (and Crystal answered what 1511 currently does), if you are shorthanded there are two solutions.

1. What we did our rookie year
- Have 1 or 2 people at all times watching matches and taking data. (we used a single excel sheet that had all of the teams in each match listed, but you could also just have one sheet per team with their match numbers on it)
- They preselect 2 teams per match to watch for that match, and gather all the data they can.
- In the selection process, you make sure every team is covered 3-4 times.
- If one of the teams chosen is a DNS or just dies (or does very little), you gather data on another team in the match.
- Make sure you get one match per "time period"... we used to try for a practice match, a friday morning, a friday afternoon, and a saturday morning.

This method limits the number of people you need to scout but also gets rid of the "they were temporarily broken" or "temporarily awesome" issue. It is not as ideal as having data from every single match, but just like in Robot Design, you HAVE to do what your team is capable of or its just not going to be useful data anyway.

2. SHARE
Find another team that has awesome scouting and ask if you can help them in exchange for their data, or just have their data, or some other kind of trade. 1511 has worked with teams in this manner, providing our data to teams that don't have scouting systems or that come help us. Many teams are very open with their data.

Good luck!