Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts

[bam-bam]

Originally Posted by 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.

Ask for collaboration with a neighboring team at your next regional (through some blue alliance research, I'm guessing next year). Granted you guys have to share data, you now have twice the manpower literally at your hands and the ability to gather solid data. Besides, it's a great opportunity to make friends and solidify your relations with other teams.

As for promotion- SELL YOUR ROBOT (AND I DON'T MEAN LITERALLY ). Create the opportunity. Put your robot above the others.

As many others had said to me, you can't just go up and say our robot is a great match for you guys. You have to sell on your best aspects of the robot (in this case, it just seems that you guys have the solidity of everything- which amazing!). Some of the best robots fly under the radar simply because it doesn't look good or the team just didn't have substantial scouting data. I have a vague suspicion that your robot and team went under the radar because of both. In short, SELL!!!

Hope this helps for next year!

[KevinGoneNuts]

This year in Sacramento, 4159 ranked 10th so we knew we would be picking an alliance. As a result we sat down as a team on Friday night and wrote down all other 49 teams on a whiteboard and went down the list and wrote down the pros and cons of each team. The observations were taken from almost all matches on Friday. It was extremely helpful, but what really helped us get an even better idea of teams (seeded below us) were the ones that approached us on Saturday letting us know they would like to work with us. 3256 gave us a nice flyer with their robot information on it (Very nice guys, I really liked it!) This is a very good strategy and it makes you remember the teams.

But as others have said, you need to maintain relationships with teams. For most, scouting starts on Thursday morning. That's when you really let people know who your team is and why you will be good to work with. Friday/Saturday just affirms or negates what you stated.

[Ben Martin]

Originally Posted by LeadU2Fun

We don't have the student power to have our own "scouting team" yet.

We participate in 2-3 team scouting alliances each year for this very reason. The logistics of setting it up and getting everyone data for their matches can be a nightmare at a small regional (since somebody is up basically every third match), but it makes it so students don't have to devote as much of the day to scouting matches.

Originally Posted by LeadU2Fun

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.

I have old quantitative scouted data for several regionals dating back to 2009. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you would like a sample.

For our team, our pick list is almost totally based on robot capabilities (wide robots only this year, if possible) and match performance, with priority put toward the more recent matches. If one tries to sell himself or herself to us, we will cross reference his or her claims with our quantitative data and impressions by our subjective scouters.

[LeadU2Fun]

Thanks again for your posts. These are great procedures you are using. I appreciate your gracious professionalism in making our team greater for next year!

[Hawiian Cadder]

Team 1410 at our regional gave me a sheet of paper with robot specs on it which i proceed to write every other bit of scouting info I needed for the day on. If you gave every captain from a high seeded team a print out for them to keep track of teams and what they are able to do well on when they go up to pick, I am sure that one would pick you.

[remulasce]

If 2nd round pick is all you have a shot at getting, I would suggest focusing on just one aspect of your robot and sell that. Often, especially at early regionals, past the ~6 top tier teams, there are only ~8 more mediocre teams that can do all the game requires. Past those, it gets extremely hard to organize teams into a pick list, since often /none/ of the last 10 teams on your top 24 list can score at an elimination level. In that case, it really helps to provide just one "service"- this year, a simple bridge-pusher or a solid drivetrain would have been huge for a second pick.

It's late now, but if you can spend a summer designing and putting together a solid "team base" you modify slightly and use every year, it will really help no matter what the game is. Even if you do nothing else, you know you can drive, and driving fast (or at all) really catches a scout's eye. 294 has refined the same basic base over a period of 5 years. The only year we haven't used it in that time was 2009, and we don't like to talk about that.

Originally Posted by remulasce

If 2nd round pick is all you have a shot at getting, I would suggest focusing on just one aspect of your robot and sell that. Often, especially at early regionals, past the ~6 top tier teams, there are only ~8 more mediocre teams that can do all the game requires. Past those, it gets extremely hard to organize teams into a pick list, since often /none/ of the last 10 teams on your top 24 list can score at an elimination level. In that case, it really helps to provide just one "service"- this year, a simple bridge-pusher or a solid drivetrain would have been huge for a second pick.

It's late now, but if you can spend a summer designing and putting together a solid "team base" you modify slightly and use every year, it will really help no matter what the game is. Even if you do nothing else, you know you can drive, and driving fast (or at all) really catches a scout's eye. 294 has refined the same basic base over a period of 5 years. The only year we haven't used it in that time was 2009, and we don't like to talk about that.

/offtopic/
Speaking of 294's base, do you have any pictures of it? I'd love to see one up close.
/offtopic/

One of the best ways to be noticed by other teams, though obvious, is to build a good robot. If you're trying to sell yourself, you need to have things to sell, and no matter how good of a salesman you are, the top teams aren't going to pay attention to you if you don't have a good robot. Strike that. Not good. Strive for great. That way, next year, you won't need to worry about selling your team; You'll be the one picking.

[Grim Tuesday]

I want to second the comment above mine: Build a strong drive train.


Let me say it again:

Build a strong drive train.

When you're a second pick tier team at a shallow event, often the best indicator of picking is the strength and reliability of your drivetrain.


But onto your original topic, if you're short of students, use a scouting conglomerate like Cowscout, or some other scouting database. Figure out what you want to be picking for, and use numbers like OPR, CCWM, and rankings guide you. Walking around the pits, and watching matches for intuition can be good backups.

[LeadU2Fun]

The OPR is out for the Arizona Regional and it has our team ranked 19th out of 50, which seems more accurate to what we accomplished in our matches. Our QP ranking of 37 out of 50 didn't really show that we made autonomous points, teleop points, and balanced. Is it quite common to have such a discrepancy or was the abundance of our difficult matches a fluke?

[LeadU2Fun]

After looking at QP and OPR rankings I can see a definite need to promote yourself to other teams like you all have suggested. Team 4202 at the Arizona Regional was ranked 13 in QP and 11 in OPR and didn't make the tournament. 991 (OPR 18 QP 33) and 1290(OPR 19 QP 37) didn't either. 2 teams were picked that had OPR in the 30's and QP in the 40's.

Now granted there may be one functionality that the alliance wanted that the robot had. Just a point that if you are higher in either rankings you still need to promote yourself.

On a side note, anybody calculating weights of double and triple balancing and if the possibility of balancing is feasible. Seems closer the weights are the closer they can be to each other and near the pivot point of the bridge. Would help eliminate the possibility of tipping because you have to get closer to the edge of the bridge if they weight difference is greater.

[LeadU2Fun]

Good to see 4146 got picked for the tournament. They had QP of 46 and OPR of 12!

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by LeadU2Fun

Good to see 4146 got picked for the tournament. They had QP of 46 and OPR of 12!

That is what scouting is all about

[jspatz1]

I can offer you our perspective for what it is worth.

To be truthful, there is very little your team members can say or do off of the field to "market" your team/robot for alliance picking. We look for alliance picks exclusively through performance and attributes displayed during qual matches. Veteran teams learn that the claims about robot capabilities made by team members anxious to be considered may or may not be true. The only information that scouters can really trust is what is displayed on the field. This can be technical capabilities of the robot, skill and smart choices by the drivers, or a cooperative drive team helps make a match plan and sticks to it.

The best marketing tool is to execute what you can do on the field. If you have an attribute that you think a highly ranked team should want, concentrate on displaying that attribute rather than just winning matches. We do not look at win/loss record or rankings when considering alliance picks. We look for capabilities and smart play that will help our alliance win. If you get the opportunity to play a qual match with a team you hope to join in elims, concentrate on fulfilling your role, and show them you can be a smart, cooperative partner.

The members in our pit are not the ones making scouting and pick decisions, so it does little good to make your pitch to them. If you have a capability that you want us to know about, ask one of our members to get word to our scouters to watch for you and your capability before you play, then go out there and execute it. We can't hope to notice every skill of every team/robot, so we are happy to have you tell us when/where to look. If you have a capability that can help our alliance win, we absolutely want to know about it. But let us know before you play, so we can see it with our own eyes.

[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).

[Jon Stratis]

We have a pretty small team, which makes promoting ourselves to other teams difficult - once you consider the people wee need in the stands scouting, those who are driving, and those we need to keep in the pit to fix the robot and talk to judges, we pretty much don't have anyone left to wander the pits talking to other teams.

So instead, we get ourselves noticed by our actions. We go out and do our best on the field, and focus on working with our alliance partners in every match. We engage everyone else who is going around scouting and stops by our pits. And as others have mentioned here, we've crafted a very distinctive look for our team that stays in people's minds.

We've also noticed that many teams either don't scout or don't know how to do so effectively. Our rookie year, we were in a position to be picking... and our scouting consisted of taking pictures of robots so we could look through them and talk about which robot we thought was best. Fortunately, we had a great team come up to us Friday morning. They said "You're going to be picking this afternoon, and we think we'll be a good alliance partner for you for these reasons... If you're willing to pick us, we'll share this crate of scouting information we've gathered over the past two days." From that, we learned what scouting was and how to actually do it.

So, starting with our second year we've done serious performance-based scouting. Not only that, but we've shared that data with everyone who wants it (and probably with some people who didn't). We print out a summary of our data, showing lists of the top teams in different categories (this year, it would include number of balls scored, number of bridges balanced, stuff like that). We include a cover letter that describes what the data represents and how it was gathered. That then gets delivered to the pits for the younger teams (mostly rookies), and in the past we've had second or third year teams come up and ask for it, remembering it from last year. The goal here is two-fold: We ensure that all the teams picking have good scouting data, which thus far has always helped us, and we ensure that they learn something about how to collect good scouting data so they can do it next year. Plus it ensures that all those teams know who we are

Also, the team discusses scouting Friday night, and pretty much figures out who is going to be on our picking list (if we're in a position to pick), and who we want to watch closely Saturday morning for more information. Teams running around Saturday trying to get noticed don't affect our scouting at all - those in the pits generally have no say on alliance selections. It's the drivers (for feedback on how they work with different teams), and those in the stands who have actually watched every match that make the decisions, and the decisions are based almost entirely on the hard data.