Tips for Team Promotion to Scouts

[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).