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Unread 02-12-2012, 01:02
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

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Originally Posted by F22Rapture View Post
I agree 100%. While I'm sure this isn't true for everybody, I've always found that the majority of scouting data never really gets used to make a decision.
  • Robot's technical ability to complete each of the subtasks of autonomous, scoring, defending, and endgame from 0 to 10, judged to a certain extent on Thursday to be revised later
  • Overall performance from 0 to 10 from each of the 10 matches

Each of the subtasks will be weighted by importance to the game (30% for endgame, 40% scoring, etc.) and then averaged together, giving a single technical average to deal with.

The each of a team's performances from their10 matches are averaged together with the first 4 matches weighted 5%, second 2 matches weighted 10%, and the last four matches weighted 15%. This gives a single performance average to deal with.

It's very simple math, it's not much data to go through, and it can be easily done in Excel with no special scouting software. And once we've finished, it's very easy to sort, filter, and manipulate to get a good list of teams. It's perfect for smaller teams since it only takes 2-3 scouts to come up with a single performance score for each robot, and maybe a few comments to change their tech score and note their predominant strategies. And they can spend their time watching the match instead of writing.

It's not fancy, perhaps not Nate Silver levels of accuracy, but it's fast and can narrow a field of 40-80 teams down to only 10 or 15 almost instantly (with little information backlog), meaning that you can then focus your time and efforts on those teams when you start going around the pits to make connections.
If your final score for each team is based on its overall performance, however, this data isn't particularly useful in discerning the strengths of different teams and how they fit into an alliance.
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Unread 02-12-2012, 01:18
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

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Originally Posted by dcarr View Post
If your final score for each team is based on its overall performance, however, this data isn't particularly useful in discerning the strengths of different teams and how they fit into an alliance.
Well, my overall point was that you can figure out the overall strength directly after the seeding matches end, and then spend the next 2 hours working out which robots of those are most compatible with your own and making connections with those teams. It's primarily a way of focusing your effort, not doing everything for you.
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Last edited by F22Rapture : 02-12-2012 at 01:22.
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Unread 02-12-2012, 01:29
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

Quote:
Originally Posted by F22Rapture View Post
Well, my overall point was that you can figure out the overall strength directly after the seeding matches end, and then spend the next 2 hours working out which robots of those are most compatible with your own and making connections with those teams. It's primarily a way of focusing your effort, not doing everything for you.
Got it. That makes sense. You want to be choosing a robot that fits your alliance needs from a subset that has been determined to be good.
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Unread 02-12-2012, 02:07
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

Quote:
Originally Posted by F22Rapture View Post
I agree 100%. While I'm sure this isn't true for everybody, I've always found that the majority of scouting data never really gets used to make a decision.
  • Robot's technical ability to complete each of the subtasks of autonomous, scoring, defending, and endgame from 0 to 10, judged to a certain extent on Thursday to be revised later
  • Overall performance from 0 to 10 from each of the 10 matches

Each of the subtasks will be weighted by importance to the game (30% for endgame, 40% scoring, etc.) and then averaged together, giving a single technical average to deal with.

The each of a team's performances from their10 matches are averaged together with the first 4 matches weighted 5%, second 2 matches weighted 10%, and the last four matches weighted 15%. This gives a single performance average to deal with.

It's very simple math, it's not much data to go through, and it can be easily done in Excel with no special scouting software. And once we've finished, it's very easy to sort, filter, and manipulate to get a good list of teams. It's perfect for smaller teams since it only takes 2-3 scouts to come up with a single performance score for each robot, and maybe a few comments to change their tech score and note their predominant strategies. And they can spend their time watching the match instead of writing.

It's not fancy, perhaps not Nate Silver levels of accuracy, but it's fast and can narrow a field of 40-80 teams down to only 10 or 15 almost instantly (with little information backlog), meaning that you can then focus your time and efforts on those teams when you start going around the pits to make connections.
While this method is an easy way to reduce the number of teams that you have to focus your scouting, you may have screened out a team that may be very beneficial to your alliance. One number cannot tell you how to find a robot that has some special attributes that you need.
That's why we collect all the data that we need. We don't scout just to keep people occupied. We use every piece of information we gathered. If there is anything we didn't use, we remove it from the scouting sheet at the next event.
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Unread 02-12-2012, 03:12
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed Law View Post
While this method is an easy way to reduce the number of teams that you have to focus your scouting, you may have screened out a team that may be very beneficial to your alliance. One number cannot tell you how to find a robot that has some special attributes that you need.
That's why we collect all the data that we need. We don't scout just to keep people occupied. We use every piece of information we gathered. If there is anything we didn't use, we remove it from the scouting sheet at the next event.
I tend to feel like that's something that's noticed in-person though, or in a specific note taken during, but not really gleaned from the statistics. If one of our scouts noticed that X team had something special that would really fit well with our team then there's no reason why we can't take note of that.
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Unread 02-12-2012, 15:16
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

Quote:
Originally Posted by F22Rapture View Post
I tend to feel like that's something that's noticed in-person though, or in a specific note taken during, but not really gleaned from the statistics. If one of our scouts noticed that X team had something special that would really fit well with our team then there's no reason why we can't take note of that.
This season we are doing the same thing the Ed Law does; as in having 6 students scout each match for quantitative data; and we are also having two students scout each match for qualitative data; giving us the best of both worlds. This setup does require 8 students at any given time, but it is by far the best system I've seen so far.
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Unread 02-12-2012, 15:51
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

This is a scouting related question that somewhat relates to this thread: What are successful ways to motivate students to do a quality job scouting (both quantitatively and qualitatively) when they do not think their work will be used in the alliance selection process?

My answer would be: quality scouting data is essential for developing the strategy for any and every match, not just eliminations. Also, even if you are not ranked #1-8, but are within a few places of that, the possibility of getting bumped up as the top teams consolidate, and then needing to choose an alliance, is very real. In addition, when attending multiple regionals with a lot of the same teams participating, having quality data on a lot of the teams ahead of time has huge benefits.
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Unread 30-11-2012, 14:47
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

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Originally Posted by Alpha Beta View Post
5. Luck... "Chance favors only the prepared mind."
No one wins a regional by being lucky, but great teams can lose regionals by being unlucky. The qualification schedule can be a cruel thing. As long as you can guarantee that you have a great robot the odds will always favor your alliance having more great robots than the randomly assembled opposition. Sometimes the match-ups just don't work out. Sometimes a poorly driven robot on your qualification alliance goes on a penalty fest. Sometimes a weaker robot winds up as one of the top alliance captains and you can't say no to their invitation. And sometimes no matter how bad you think your situation is, the other side has worse luck and you still win. No point in giving up too early.
I'm with you on this one.

We spend more time preparing for a tournament than the actual time spent at a tournament. The nights of tournaments aren't spent on free time, but instead on preparing for the next day.
Or maybe its because coming from Hawaii, we have to cover all our bases, such as down to the extra zip tie for crates after TSA checks them.
There are teams that I admire in FIRST when we attend events as we see how prepared they are. You can tell by their demeanor as they are the most calm and relaxed, yet ready for action.
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Unread 26-11-2012, 19:56
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Re: How to Win a Robotics Competition

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Originally Posted by Carol View Post
And another big factor in winning.


Luck.
I've heard that luck is something that requires having developed the ability to achieve something, and seizing every available opportunity in hopes of achieving it. Take that for what it's worth, I guess.
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