Sharing information - not a good idea?

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by bduddy

In past FRC games, most teams have shared information about their own robots fairly freely with other teams, both to assist scouting and just as a general courtesy. However, in this game, alliances have a direct ability, through choosing defenses, to affect how difficult it is for the other alliance to gain points. Therefore, if I was in the pits and heard "What defenses can your robot cross?" or even "What does that arm do?" early on Friday, I'd think twice before answering... especially if I glanced at the schedule and saw that the team asking was a future opponent.

Any thoughts? Am I just overly competitive, or is this going to be a real issue?

I don't think the answers to pit scouting questions have ever been particularly well correlated with robot ability. It seems the way psychology works your best match somehow becomes what you remember as average. Folks don't do it to be devious, they just honestly don't know how well their robot actually performs.

What happens on the field is the truth, everything else is subject to be Best Available Data.