FRCscout.com A Different Approach to the Scouting Platform

[April_robo]

Great website. Just made an account for my team. Will have to try this out at Waterford this weekend.

[murraybd]

Originally Posted by depth_Finder

Teams 4030 Null Pointer Exception and 1983 Skunk Works are proud to present our scouting platform, http://FRCscout.com/. Designed to be user-friendly and easy to implement, our platform includes these following main features:
[list][*]Internet Connection: The platform is designed to work around spotty internet connection and the lack of Wi-Fi at competitions. Connect to the internet once to load the entire scouting process, leave the connection and scout an unlimited number of matches, then connect to the internet again to push your local data to the database.

Could you explain some more about how it possible to scout the matches when offline? Where is the data stored what do you, as a user, to submit the data to the server?

[depth_Finder]

Originally Posted by murraybd

Could you explain some more about how it possible to scout the matches when offline? Where is the data stored what do you, as a user, to submit the data to the server?

Once you have loaded the match scouting page, it never needs to reload. All of the matches are cached into local storage until you reconnect to the internet. At the end of each match it tries to push to the server. If you have internet at that time, it will push it online, otherwise you can manually push it with a button that is on the prematch page and a button on the main menu.

At the Auburn Mountainview district, two teams scouted offline all day without any problems. It works surprisingly well.

So you only really need to connect to the internet when you want to push or access your data. I recommend having a single phone with bluetooth tethering and pushing a different tablet (or laptop) between each match.

[AndyBare]

One quick - foreseeable problem, what's to stop (Random guy X from Team X) from making a parent-manager account for (Team y)?

[depth_Finder]

Originally Posted by AndyBare

One quick - foreseeable problem, what's to stop (Random guy X from Team X) from making a parent-manager account for (Team y)?

They will get an email for every user that signs up. If they do it on accident they can just approve another team manager and then delete their own account.

If they are being malicious, both me and our lead developer are very easy to reach and we can appoint some new managers and remove the troll.

If this becomes a big issue, we can add more tools for account creation and team manager reclamation. Right now though, we are focusing on more analytics and for ways for teams to edit and manage their own data.

[blincoln1534@gm]

How do we connect to the database?

[depth_Finder]

Originally Posted by blincoln1534@gm

How do we connect to the database?

On the website there are two buttons.

Integrate with Tableau lets you download a connector file. Opening this connector file with Tableau connects you to the most recent data and preloads some calculated fields and pictures of the field.

Connect to Database gives you the logon credentials to connect pgadmin (a program for connecting to Postgre sql databases) to your data.

[depth_Finder]

Hi everyone! So I wanted to post some visualizations and usage statistics I made with the frcscout.com database.

Please check it out!
https://public.tableau.com/profile/p...botRoleScatter

Disclaimer:

• All data is collected by scouts (not just my own team) and therefore might not reflect the true results.
• It has all of the data currently (8:00 PM PST 3/7/2015) in the database. I will refresh it and upload it on Monday to reflect this weekend's scouting.

Also, shout out to team 360 who scouted the Auburn Mountainview regional almost entirely offline (at one point a scout went 23 matches in a row without pushing data).

[zblackwo]

I'm trying to access the database through Tableau, and getting the following error:
See attachment 1

I'm using the file downloaded from frcscout for the login information.
See attachment 2

Any ideas on why I can't access the data?

[depth_Finder]

Originally Posted by zblackwo

I'm trying to access the database through Tableau, and getting the following error:
See attachment 1

I'm using the file downloaded from frcscout for the login information.
See attachment 2

Any ideas on why I can't access the data?

Looking at your logs, I think it is mostly that you lost connection during authentication. Try restarting your wifi and connecting again. It is working for me and our other developer right now so I think it might be on your side. Your logon information is correct.

Also, we provide a connector file for Tableau that should handle the connection and give a few pre-made calculated fields to help you get started.

Just to make sure, you downloaded the PGSQL driver right?

[zblackwo]

Yes, I do have the driver, and I am using that file for the connection. I'm trying to use the public wifi available at the event, and that may be the problem.

[depth_Finder]

Originally Posted by zblackwo

Yes, I do have the driver, and I am using that file for the connection. I'm trying to use the public wifi available at the event, and that may be the problem.

That would probably be the problem. It takes a bit of time to extract the data. Bluetooth tether to your phone and use a data extract to avoid having to reconnect every time you move anything. Just refresh the extract every 5 matches or something.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by depth_Finder

That would probably be the problem. It takes a bit of time to extract the data. Bluetooth tether to your phone and use a data extract to avoid having to reconnect every time you move anything. Just refresh the extract every 5 matches or something.

Note that the organizers close down the public WiFi at many events (they did at CVR).

[Jaykus]

To the owners of frcscout.com:
First of all, love your website, kudos!
At competitions, the data is stored locally, and I was wondering if there was a way to access these files so that they could be sent over bluetooth. That would be a good way to get around the wifi problem at competitions.
To everyone:
Does anyone know an app or website where this could be done? We're looking for any scouting system that can send data over bluetooth or anything that could get around the wifi issue.

[depth_Finder]

Originally Posted by Jaykus

To the owners of frcscout.com:
First of all, love your website, kudos!
At competitions, the data is stored locally, and I was wondering if there was a way to access these files so that they could be sent over bluetooth. That would be a good way to get around the wifi problem at competitions.
To everyone:
Does anyone know an app or website where this could be done? We're looking for any scouting system that can send data over bluetooth or anything that could get around the wifi issue.

I made a quick walk-through to find the local storage and posted it to Imgur. Here is a link to the album: http://imgur.com/gallery/lvNY8/

If you want to make an add-on for your browser to use this raw data, be my guest.

If you have bluetooth though, you should consider just tethering your devices to the internet with bluetooth. It's what we do at competitions. As long as you have even one bluetooth enabled internet device, you are set.

While sending the data can work on very sketchy connections, for analyzing the data in Tableau, I strongly recommend USB tethering to your phone to minimize the chance of dropping a connection. Our database is getting pretty big so having a faster, more reliable internet connection is your best friend.

Please PM me if you have any more questions or if there is any way I can help you out for your specific case.



Happy Scouting!

Quinn