Introducing Electronic Scouting: Tablets

[alextried]

Hey guys, for the upcoming FRC 2015 season I'm going to a second-year Scout Master. Before Aerial Assist, my team (3525) essentially had no scouting whatsoever, and I did my best to amend that. I'm hoping to make an upgrade to electronic scouting instead of paper ($ allowing), and my biggest question right now is: what brand/tablet should I go for? I don't need tablets that are particularly expensive, but they need to be efficient and consistent. I'm not particularly (okay, at all) experienced in programming, and so I wonder: would different programs require different tablets and such? I realize I'm new to the subject and need to enlighten myself, which is why I'm asking so early. Any suggestions or tips would be extremely helpful and appreciated!

[Shrub]

Our team's school has iPads for every student, so we use the FRC Scout app. One of our mentors is the "master iPad", where is we compile data, and then 6 students donate theirs for the day (3 red and 3 blue). We compile all the Red data to Red 1, all the Blue data to Blue 1, and then all that to the "master" through Bluetooth. Sometimes we end up playing games on them, but there haven't any incidents where students snoop on things other students have on their iPads (and since there's no WiFi that isn't a huge possibility).

Of course, iPads are expensive, and at the least you would need 6 to scout. I prefer Android (like a certain scouting captain on my team) but I don't know if there's an app available for that besides FRC Spyder.

[TheHolyHades1]

I can't particularly speak from the scouting aspect of it, however, I feel relatively comfortable speaking about the various tablet options you have at the moment. For a cost effective solution, I'd certainly recommend looking at purchasing an Android tablet - both Windows (surface), and Apple (iPad series) tablets are much too expensive for this purpose, and neither offer low cost solutions.

In the sub 100 range, you're looking at the following tablets:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...cId=1000978251

Again, I can't particularly speak for any of the given tablets, but what I can recommend is that you try to find something larger than 7 inches if possible. The extra screen real estate will be very valuable if you develop your own scouting application, or if you try to use a web app of some sort.

By the way, make sure you're not getting something like a Kindle Fire - get something with a stock android version, which makes it much easier to add your own apps. If I had to pick any particular brands from there, Acer and Dell tend to produce decent quality tablets at a low cost. Samsung tends to be a little pricier (may not fit into your budget), but the Galaxy Tab series is well known. I know Lenovo makes decent, well built laptops, but I can't speak for their tablets.

Now, as for developing for the tablets - as long as they're all running the same Android version (roughly), and they're all at the same screen size (again, roughly), you don't really need to worry about compatibility. You'll be able to make components display relative to each other, with the spacing scaling automatically as necessary. The difference comes when you've got different android versions (i.e. 2.3 vs 4.4) and different screen sizes (i.e. Nexus 4 vs Nexus 10), because if you use software developed for a 4" screen you'll either have blurry images or a lot of dead space in the 10" screen.

If you've got any other questions let me know. I've tried to provide a brief overview.

[depth_Finder]

Our team bought Nexus 7s last year, and they worked incredibly well. If you can't program them, these tablets can handle all of the open source scouting apps for Android so you can pick your favorites, or it can use an online scouting solution like frcscout.com.

The reasons our team loved them follows:

1. They are the perfect size to hold. Not to big, but large enough to easily enter data and scout

2. Camera helps with pit scouting

3. MASSIVE battery means that you don't have to bring an inverter to recharge the tablets in the stands.

4a. Optional, but we solved the WiFi problem by getting a mobile data Sim card for the tablets. If you are interested, we found a free plan for small data usage (which if you only use it for scouting apps, you will almost never reach it)

4b. As lead data, I used the devices tethering capabilities to sync to our online database from the pits to give our coach the freshest data. Also useful at team scouting meetings where being able to look up stuff without WiFi is important.

5. If your team wants to start programming, it is easier to do on a tablet because it uses Java, a language some of your programmers should know. Apple uses less common languages.

Also, about the same price as a mini. (At least it was at the time we bought them).

PM me if you have specific questions.

[notmattlythgoe]

We've been using Kindle Fire's for the past couple of years and have been very happy with them. Our only complaint is that ours don't have bluetooth on them.

[tickspe15]

Originally Posted by depth_Finder

4a. Optional, but we solved the WiFi problem by getting a mobile data Sim card for the tablets. If you are interested, we found a free plan for small data usage (which if you only use it for scouting apps, you will almost never reach it)

4b. As lead data, I used the devices tethering capabilities to sync to our online database from the pits to give our coach the freshest data. Also useful at team scouting meetings where being able to look up stuff without WiFi is important.

Our team chose nexus 7s for many of the same reasons but we ran a USB network instead of 4g because it's both cheeper and more robust. The cables weren't really a downside because the tablets would be plugged in to our inverter for power anyways. Having a student run data back and forth was a pain though.

[evanperryg]

Check out 1678's scouting documentation for some great info on tablet scouting. Tablets aren't the only way to do electronic scouting, though. My team uses a custom system with playstation controllers. Tablets are the better option overall, but they can be tough to implement if you want to use a custom system. I have a document similar to 1678's whitepaper which lays out the 2338 system, pm me if you're interested and I'll be happy to share it.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by evanperryg

Check out 1678's scouting documentation for some great info on tablet scouting. Tablets aren't the only way to do electronic scouting, though. My team uses a custom system with playstation controllers. Tablets are the better option overall, but they can be tough to implement if you want to use a custom system. I have a document similar to 1678's whitepaper which lays out the 2338 system, pm me if you're interested and I'll be happy to share it.

I've asked our two tech leads to weigh in on this. Our system is a less expensive approach than 1983's (whom we're in discussions with), and we were able to get away with only two data SIM cards by using Bluetooth. The year before we used an even less expensive wire network approach. (You can see our previous whitepaper on that system.) It was less reliable, but was about half the cost.

[vboratyn6053]

A couple weeks ago 111 released their scouting program, WildRank. There is information on what devices we used and information about compatibility with different devices. I know they'd be happy to answer any questions.

It's also worth looking into if you can get a donation from one of your sponsors (monetary or tablets).


http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...light=wildrank

[silverD]

We use tablets for our scouting app FRCKrawler and found the Hisense Sero 7 Pro to work very well. They are cost effective and spec'd very similar/better than a Gen 1 Nexus 7. There is a great deal on refurbished ones going on right now at newegg for $50 after rebate. It might be worth checking out.
Nate

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

It was less reliable, but was about half the cost.

At half of the $3000 estimate in your 2014 whitepaper, the 1678 system will still cost about $600 more than the 2338 system. Admittedly, our setup is pretty barebones, and the laptops we use are not anything you'll be gaming on, but it's really inexpensive for how well it performs.

[hyprvx]

My tablet is an Azpen A727 that I got for $20 at my local Micro Center. They also have an A700 model for $40, and with a 1ghz processor and half a gig of RAM, they could be very good for scouting. I'm about to test the DS app on my A727 as well, so cheap tablets can be worth it!

[alextried]

Thanks for all the great input! Currently I'm leaning towards practice during off-season events (Bash at the Beach) with a Nexus 7. Does a tablet/paper system sound efficient? My biggest goal this year is to streamline the scouting process for my scouting team and increase effectiveness.

[DJB11]

Our team uses android tablets that managed our Pit Scouting and Real-Time Game Scouting into two separate categories. The pit scouting features worked exceptionally well, but next year we will be trying an improved excel system.

[adciv]

Recomendation here, try using phones instead of tablets to beging with. You will most likely be able to use team members Droids/iPhones and can test out what you want to do before spending a lot of money on hardware. We use a custom scouting app running on android and just use phones borrowed from students/mentors during the tournament.