How do you make your pick lists?

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by BMSOTM

Last year was our first time being an alliance captain, and this year is the first year we've been prepared for it.

I'm curious how other teams go about making their pick lists. I don't mean who to pick so much as the process by which who to pick is determined on an event-wide scale. This year we've experimented and found a low-tech system that works with our 100% paper scouting system.

The night after Day 1, we make a big spreadsheet listing every team at the event, go through the paper scouting sheets we have on each team at the event and classify them by tote-feeding location (HP/LF/either) and role (stacker, capper, etc). We also put together a couple sentences describing the robot's performance.

Based on the robot's performance, its compatibility with our strategy, and what the drive team said after a match with them (if we had one), all the teams are rated on a 0-5 scale:

5: ideal/best
4: desirable
3: moderately desirable
2: neither desirable nor undesirable
1: undesirable
0: do not pick under any circumstance (reserved for severe reliability issues and major strategy or drive team incompatibility)

From there, within the 5s, we go past the decimal point and identify who the most desirable team is (5.9), the next most desirable team (5.8), etc.

We do this for the 4s, the 3s, etc until we have ~26 teams rated past one digit. Using the fractional ratings, we rank all the teams, and we have a preliminary pick list. We tweak it during the day as we learn more about teams and hear more from the drive team.

If you don't want to read skip to here
While our system works, my one qualm is that it's time consuming to prepare. I'm curious how other teams do it, especially the ones who mathematically calculate pick list rankings.

How does your team identify its best partners among 30-75 teams?

Good picklisting is always going to be time-consuming.

At Championships this year, we had the honor of helping out our friends on 5254 make a picklist for Saturday. They were involved in our scouting Alliance, but didn't really know how to use our data to picklist.

How much you rely on quantitative data depends often on the game you're playing. In 2014, important data to know was High goal accuracy or truss accuracy, whereas in 2015 important data to know was average number of stacks/match and standard deviation. Important qualitative data to understand is how the team scored those points: Landfill or feeder? Fender shooting or long range shooting?

Understand scarcity: in Carson this year, there were something like 12 landfill robots, and only a few that could make more than one stack in a match from there. As such, a robot that makes 2 stacks/match from the landfill was more valuable than a robot that makes 2 stacks/match from the feeder station.

Understand who the safe picks and the risk picks are: In 2013, 67 had the highest standard deviation of any team at IRI. In a good match, they could score every disc in the feeder station and hit a 50 point climb. In a bad match, they might only hit auto, a few discs, and mess up their climb. 1114 was consistently making 4 cycles in a match and hitting at least a 30 point climb. As the #1 seed, which would you rather pick? 1114, because they consistently scored well. As the #8 seed, which would you rather pick? 67, because they're the risk pick that might perform well enough to win the event for you.
(That being said, 1114 was the first seed and 67 was the 2nd overall pick, and rightfully so. Just an example to consider.)

Considering all of these factors, make a picklist containing at least 24 robots (or 32 at the championship). This list includes every robot that is good, including your own and robots you wouldn't be able to pick in order of how much you'd like to pair with them. This also helps you decide who you would reject. Sometimes it can be helpful to make multiple lists for different robot categories.

Whatever your list looks like- don't follow it blindly! Understand who on your list works better with the other robots you've selected and take input from your Alliance partners. Sometimes it can be better to take a slightly inferior pick for you because it prevents another Alliance from being able to pick that robot. This is a niche case, but it can be useful.

In 2013 at the River Rage off-season event, we had the option of selecting our second pick right before 3467 picked. The two smart picks were 190 and 2648. 190 consistently hit a 50-point climb and dump, whereas 2648 was less consistently hitting 2-3 cycles, auto, and a 10-pt hang. 190 scored more points on average, and we selected them, but if we picked 2648, we would have won. 190 and 3467 both couldn't climb the pyramid because they both climbed inside the pyramid, so 2648 was the better pick to prevent 3467 from being able to pick them.

Lastly, at most events where Saturday morning qualification matches happen, be on the lookout for teams who change things up, or show flashes of either poor play or brilliance. Your picklist needs to change with these results.

Now obviously a lot of this data is necessary for this type of process. 20 uses paper scouting which we input into an excel database, which computes these averages for us and the teams working with us scouting and makes this process much easier.
We also like to watch match video to really understand what teams are doing, so we film all the matches.

This might seem like a large ordeal for a team that requires a lot of manpower, so 20 allies with other teams using our scouting system to provide data to everyone involved.

If you have any questions about our scouting system, feel free to PM me. I've always felt scouting is one of 20's biggest strengths.