Sharing Scouting Data at Championships

[pabeekm]

Team 900 is going to St. Louis this year, and it's clear to us that with the small number of people teams will be able to bring, 4 fields is just WAY too much to keep track of. I'd like to propose a "scouting alliance" between teams going to St. Louis. The rules of said "alliance" would be as follows:

1. Each team scouts their own field. (Teams on the same field can both be in the alliance; the more data the better!)
2. Each team makes a clear and conscious effort to keep track of all six robots in all qualification/elimination matches on said field.*
3. Should any (or multiple) team(s) within the scouting alliance advance to Einstein, all the data on the robots from the other fields will be compiled and shared with them.

This way, teams won't have to worry about watching fields besides their own and will know what they'll be facing if they do make it to Einstein.

*Hypothetically, teams on the scouting alliance will be able to scout however they want so long as they do detailed analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, of performance during the matches. Data should be organized by team for easy reading.

Anyone interested in joining in on this? Let us know what you think!

[rxgman123]

So how would this data be shared?

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by rxgman123

So how would this data be shared?

At most only 4 of the teams on the scouting alliance can wind up at Einstein and only four alliances will be competing, right? So it should be easy enough for each team in the scouting alliance to take out the data on the winning robots from their field, meet with the scouting alliance teams going to Einstein, quickly compile/ copy the relevant data on paper and hand it off.

[xSAWxBLADEx]

Here is a trick I learned from 217. When you are picked on your field and you have a good chance of going to Einstein, get the other two teams on your alliance scouters together. The 3 scouting teams decide on one scouting form. (it is usually the team ranked higher) Then, they split up to cover the other three fields. Hope this helped!

[Joseph Lewis]

Team 701 will not be attending Championships this year, but hopefully (crossing my fingers and coding as hard as I can, not at the same time of course) we will have ironed out our bugs to our electronic scouting system for Android devices. It includes data collection on individual teams as well as complete data analysis, including Hot Spots (a record of where and what happened on the field, by team) and served us well at the Inland Empire and Sacramento Regionals. In the case that we can finish this system, we would be happy to offer this "Scouting Alliance" and all teams at Championships the uniformity of a single and robust, comprehensive system to ease the sharing of data between all four fields.

If you want more details about our data collection and analysis, just email me at
biosonic42@gmail.com
and I will get back to you as quickly as possible.

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by xSAWxBLADEx

Here is a trick I learned from 217. When you are picked on your field and you have a good chance of going to Einstein, get the other two teams on your alliance scouters together. The 3 scouting teams decide on one scouting form. (it is usually the team ranked higher) Then, they split up to cover the other three fields. Hope this helped!

Thanks for that tip! My main concern with that though is you then don't get data from the qualifiers. It helps a lot to see how a robot performs under as many different situations as possible. Plus, this means scouters will be directing their attention away from the eliminations on their own field, analysis from which is super important to their own alliance's success.

[Kevin Leonard]

Team 20 actually had this idea last year, but we were unable to implement it.

At every event we attend, we put together our Scouting Constellation with a few other teams. We then get a few scouts from each team, as well as our own, to scout each shift, and then we share all the data equally.

For more information, email Team20Scouting@gmail.com

I see no reason we couldn't be a part of this (although I totally want to be on the same field as you guys!).

[BrendanB]

Another method is once the divisions are announced you can collaborate to form a group where teams from each division will openly share data to whomever makes it to Einstein. I've heard this method used by other teams who have close ties with teams competing on the other three fields.

[xSAWxBLADEx]

Originally Posted by pabeekm

Thanks for that tip! My main concern with that though is you then don't get data from the qualifiers. It helps a lot to see how a robot performs under as many different situations as possible. Plus, this means scouters will be directing their attention away from the eliminations on their own field, analysis from which is super important to their own alliance's success.

We got all the info we needed in 2009, and also we had Paul C. for our field analysis for our own field...So, we were set. lol The only bad thing was we couldn't be cheerleaders along with the rest of our team.

[1306scouting]

If team 1306 qualifies, we will run CrowdScout, our initiative for crowdsourced scouting. Assuming there are willing teams on each field that can scout the matches, we can compile and have all the data easily accessible in our database for teams that need it.

(Briefly, our system uses scantron-style scouting sheets that are scanned into a computer, which compiles all the information into a large database with a huge amount of information. How the teams use this information is up to them.)

If you have any questions, PM me.

[pabeekm]

Please forgive the necromancy! Since most teams know at this point if they're going to championships, this thread is probably more relevant now. If any teams are interested in joining in on a scouting alliance (with the rules stated above), please email scouting@team900.org.

[The other Gabe]

Originally Posted by pabeekm

Team 900 is going to St. Louis this year, and it's clear to us that with the small number of people teams will be able to bring, 4 fields is just WAY too much to keep track of. I'd like to propose a "scouting alliance" between teams going to St. Louis. The rules of said "alliance" would be as follows:

1. Each team scouts their own field. (Teams on the same field can both be in the alliance; the more data the better!)
2. Each team makes a clear and conscious effort to keep track of all six robots in all qualification/elimination matches on said field.*
3. Should any (or multiple) team(s) within the scouting alliance advance to Einstein, all the data on the robots from the other fields will be compiled and shared with them.

This way, teams won't have to worry about watching fields besides their own and will know what they'll be facing if they do make it to Einstein.

*Hypothetically, teams on the scouting alliance will be able to scout however they want so long as they do detailed analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, of performance during the matches. Data should be organized by team for easy reading.

Anyone interested in joining in on this? Let us know what you think!

I would be more than willing to do this: I'm the (co) scout lead for 2046, bear metal. we run a comprehensive scouting program, complete with a fancy excel spreadsheet and everything. although we technically haven't qualified for nationals (PNW District championships are this week and man am I excited) I would love to try and set this up (i'm jumping to some conclusions and assuming our team would be fine with this and willing to share, which I'm sure they would be, especially if you guys were giving us your info), as I feel like it would both help under privileged teams, and give us a lot of info on what we're facing if we happen to get to Einstein (we would be the first PNW team to do so... it would be awesome)

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by The other Gabe

I would be more than willing to do this: I'm the (co) scout lead for 2046, bear metal. we run a comprehensive scouting program, complete with a fancy excel spreadsheet and everything. although we technically haven't qualified for nationals (PNW District championships are this week and man am I excited) I would love to try and set this up (i'm jumping to some conclusions and assuming our team would be fine with this and willing to share, which I'm sure they would be, especially if you guys were giving us your info), as I feel like it would both help under privileged teams, and give us a lot of info on what we're facing if we happen to get to Einstein (we would be the first PNW team to do so... it would be awesome)

Great! Good luck to you guys!

[Remy_Gambit]

Team 1011 would love to help gather and put together information about our field! We use the app "frc scout" on Ipads to record the data of each match, which is very useful and much easier than pen and paper. It is very simple to pull information off of the app and input into a teams archive.

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by Remy_Gambit

Team 1011 would love to help gather and put together information about our field! We use the app "frc scout" on Ipads to record the data of each match, which is very useful and much easier than pen and paper. It is very simple to pull information off of the app and input into a teams archive.

Cool! What variables is your team compiling on it? Any custom ones?