How do you make your pick lists?

[Citrus Dad]

First, we have white papers on the development of our tablet/smart phone scouting system. We use it to both develop pick lists and to push data to our drive team.

Second, we develop two pick lists, one for our first pick which is usually offensively oriented, and a second pick list for the special role needed that year which usually is defensive or counterdefensive. Our first pick usually relies on quantitative data much like the OPR. (The problem with OPR is that it is heavily influenced by the vagaries of alliance partners, but its useful as a first approximation in a pinch.)

The second pick is usually much more qualitative such as driving skill and blocking ability. We've found that we can use an in-match ordinal ranking to rank robots in those abilities. This holds due to the transitive property (classroom assignment: look it up.) We use regression analysis and linear programming to estimate the relative importance of each factor on the match score so that we can weight these versus offensive scoring. To the second pick list we'll add other game specific features depending on the year's game.

Finally, we consider the team's organization. We almost always end up picking a team higher if we think they bring an X factor to the alliance.