Scouting using tablets

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by dcarr

The Xoom is a good choice since its essentially a "Nexus" device and still receiving new updates straight from Google (through 4.1.2 at least).

Starting this year all students at one of the three schools that make up our team are required to have iPads. So our tablet makeup will consist of those, personally owned iPads, and personally owned Android tablets. As such we are testing a Google Docs based system because it is simple and cross platform. Still evaluating the apps that have been released by other teams for both platforms.

Just out of curiosity, with a Google Docs based system, have you found a workaround for using them at the competitions, ie. without internet? Or are they 3G devices?

[jbsmithtx]

Exactly what I have we been looking into. Doesn't seem to be incredibly hard, but make sure that everyone on your team (or at least scouts) are on the same problem. Therein lies the problem with my team. Too many different platforms despite the fact that our school has iPads. We could only use maybe one or two, so we had to revert to phones. If something was done in Google docs, that might be able to sync with everyone and that's the route I think our team is going to pursue this year. Makes more sense from a compatibility standpoint, as well as not costing our teams a dime, especially if one can re-sync all the data overnight if not allowed in the arena areas. Also, makes sharing data seamless with anyone who needs it.

[Jacob.B]

So, our team is still sticking to the paper method.

Last year, we had two teams of 6 scouters. Each scouter would watch one bot and match different things throughout the match. After about 16 matches, we would switch to the other team.

I would like to switch to tablets, because it's seems more user friendly, environment benefiting, and easier to compile data.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by stevend1994

Just out of curiosity, with a Google Docs based system, have you found a workaround for using them at the competitions, ie. without internet? Or are they 3G devices?

Unfortunately, no. It's a shame that offline mode is not yet part of Google Drive on Android/iOS as it is on computers running Chrome.

The current plan for tablets without their own 3G connections is to tether via bluetooth. We are still looking at all options though, because something that can work offline would clearly be preferable.

[Ed Law]

Originally Posted by Jacob.B

So, our team is still sticking to the paper method.

Last year, we had two teams of 6 scouters. Each scouter would watch one bot and match different things throughout the match. After about 16 matches, we would switch to the other team.

I would like to switch to tablets, because it's seems more user friendly, environment benefiting, and easier to compile data.

Our two teams' scouting methods are very similar. I don't know if we will see each other before Buckeye Regional. If not, come by our pit and I will show you what our apps look like and how we use it. Also I don't know if I have enough students going to Buckeye Regional since it is Easter weekend and it will be our third competition in four weeks. May be our two teams can scout together. Even if I have enough students to scout, we can still work together so you get a better understanding how scouting with tablets work better than paper.

[stingray27]

One of our programmers had a very cool idea with the Scouting app for our team. Since we are looking into sending match results over bluetooth, a custom app doesn't allow you to interface with the bluetooth connectivity by sending the files we wanted to send. So instead, we are coding our data into pictures, then sending the pictures over, and decompiling our pictures. It is the only way we can think of right now and it seems to be going well so we will continue with it. Last year we used iPads and just stored all the files locally and downloaded them to a master computer 5 matches before our match, in which we ran a macro in excel to analyze the data, then passed to myself and my other driver to go and take around to our alliance to prepare for the match. This year, we hope that the picture files will allow us to be constantly updated and possibly allow the drive team to have a 7th iPad in which we will have automatic data in the pits.

[RoboScout]

Originally Posted by stevend1994

We plan on scouting with tablets this year, probably either Nexus 7's(I have my personal one and absolutely love it...my mom just got a Nexus 10 as well and it's awesome) or Galaxy Tab 2 7's(which I'd probably root and put a ROM closer to stock Android on...but I digress). Whichever's cheaper at the time of purchase. The current plan is to use this app: and then export as CSV files to be put into an Excel or Access database. Moving the file from the tablet to computer is done with the archaic method of manually using Windows File Explorer to pull the CSV's off the tablet. The only flaw is sometimes(and only on 2 Nexus 7's tried so far, not on my phone running CyanogenMod 9...) the folder just plain doesn't show up or get updated, in which case this app has to run to get it to work.

Hey Steven,

I may have run into this same issue with the Xoom and Acer tablets that we use for our scouting application. Frequently, we would connect the tablet to the windows machine to manually transfer files and the new files wouldn't show up in the explorer window. We never did find the magic sequence that consistently resulted in the files appearing in the folder listing. Is this the behavior that you experienced, too, and what is resolved by the rescan application? If so, this find will be most welcome when if we need to fall back to a manual transfer again.

Thank you,

Ken St.
FIRST Team 1073