Scouting Questions

[tindleroot]

Last year, I heard: would you be willing to cheesecake?

No, I would not. We have planned our own strategy and a perfectly fine robot, thanks.

[MrBasse]

"How many wheels do you have?" I usually tell the kids to take a look and make sure we didn't forget any. It's also fun to ask the same question back to them and see how they respond.

I always love it when kids ask how fast you do something after they just found out it was your first event for the season. I typically tell them to time us in our first match, and hopefully it will keep getting better.

[Jarren Harkema]

"How tall is your robot"
*scribbles down notes*
"How wide is your robot"
*scribbles down notes*
"How long is your robot"
*scribbles down notes*
"Thank you!"
*Walks away*

Student in the pit with me: Those numbers weren't right.
Me: I know.

[IronicDeadBird]

Last year I honestly considered talking to my team about having a QR code linked to a document with all the questions you normally see. Either way favorite question is.
"What does your robot do?"
The reply from me generally is.
"dunno"

[snoman]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

Last year I honestly considered talking to my team about having a QR code linked to a document with all the questions you normally see.

We put together a trifold flyer with the most common questions answered and hand it to them if no one was available to talk. Otherwise we try to oblige them. No need to be nasty or condescending gracious profesionalism right

[Chief Hedgehog]

I am pretty disappointed with most of the answers here. To be honest, my team does take a serious note when it comes to Pit Scouting - and we make certain to prep our Pit Team for the questions.

We are a team that has needed much from our competitors, and we truly rely on our Pit team to find these answers/help. We also try to aid other teams via Pit Scouting.

I may be taking this 'scouting thing' a bit differently than the rest of the responders, but here is what we try to do:

1. We actually glean info from the Pit scouting. Ask the right questions and you can get the right answers.

2. My team finds inspiration for our next season in what the other teams are doing in the off season.

3. Gauge a level of awareness of the 'whole' team. Kids are honest - and they will tell you some awesome and amazing stories about their teams!

4. Find out what teams are making a big splash.

5. Infer how teams will pick in the alliance selection. This was a great help in 2014 at the MSHSL tournament. We knew our 'fate' before the No. 1 Alliance Captain announced it. We adjusted accordingly. From 2530's video's you can hear the confusion of alliance selection (listen close at the :48 sec mark). As you can tell, our Captain (Ginger Power) didn't hesitate as we already 'knew' we were not going to be picked by 2175. We put together the alliance that we knew would be the best to knock off the other two returning champs.

6. To get to know the other teams. This is about the kids competing AND celebrating their accomplishments.

7. The Pit team likes to brag up the robot - let them have at it!

[Ginger Power]

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your bumper quality?"... because that's somehow relevant information...

Pit scouting is useful for the things you can't figure out from watching the robot on the field. How mechanisms work and things of that nature. It could also be important this year for robot dimensions - have to make sure all 3 robots can fit while climbing.

If only teams would use pit scouting efficiently...

[Chief Hedgehog]

Or effectively... Ginger Power - we don't agree on much
l
l
V

[Michael Hill]

I like to collect some information about the drive team, like who their coach is (mentor or student), how much practice time they've had with their drive configuration, etc. Our team always has student coaches, so if our alliance partner's coaches are mentors, we'll send an adult with our team to talk strategy so our student coach doesn't get steamrolled over an adult coach with say...an abrasive personality. We're going to make sure our coach's voice is heard.

[Basel A]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your bumper quality?"... because that's somehow relevant information...

Pit scouting is useful for the things you can't figure out from watching the robot on the field. How mechanisms work and things of that nature. It could also be important this year for robot dimensions - have to make sure all 3 robots can fit while climbing.

If only teams would use pit scouting efficiently...

Gauging bumper quality is very important; it's strongly correlated with robot performance. But I wouldn't ask a team to rate their own bumper quality..

[George1902]

Some of the responses in this thread more than disappoint me. They disgust me.

If a student approaches your pit with a part they needed machined or a wire they needed soldered, do you ridicule them? Give them false information and send them on their way? Nudge their elbow while they use your band saw?

If a scouter asks a question with an easily-observed answer, I invite them into our pit to take a closer look at the robot. If the pit is too busy at the moment, I invite them to return at a better time.

If a scouter asks a question that seems irrelevant to me, I look for the logic behind the question and answer it as fully as I can.

I train my scouters to introduce themselves and ask for the chance to view the robot. We have a set of desirable data that is infeasible to collect during matches, so that is their focus.

Our scouters are also trained to find teams in need of help. If they have no autonomous, ask if we can send a programmer over to try to get something going. If they are have nothing but a pile of parts and the only mentor who showed up was their teacher (who happens to teach English), can we send over some of our mechanical and electrical people to help out? (true story)

I sincerely hope some of you reassess your outlook in this area. If you feel you are getting useless data, ask better questions and train your scouters better. Scouters are the eyes and ears of your teams.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

[EricLeifermann]

Originally Posted by George1902

Some of the responses in this thread more than disappoint me. They disgust me.

If a student approaches your pit with a part they needed machined or a wire they needed soldered, do you ridicule them? Give them false information and send them on their way? Nudge their elbow while they use your band saw?

No, and this is a horrible comparison.

We also answer all pit scouting questions honestly and don't give useless info.

However we don't pit scout for many of the reasons posted here.

Originally Posted by George1902

Our scouters are also trained to find teams in need of help. If they have no autonomous, ask if we can send a programmer over to try to get something going. If they are have nothing but a pile of parts and the only mentor who showed up was their teacher (who happens to teach English), can we send over some of our mechanical and electrical people to help out? (true story)

We have a sub team at comps whose sole purpose is to go to teams and ask them if they need help and find ways to provide it. Either through us or another team. We don't need our scouters to do this.

[George1902]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

We also answer all pit scouting questions honestly and don't give useless info.

I know, Eric. Wave is one of the teams that does this (and so many other things) right. Sadly, a quick read through this thread and others on CD shows that that behavior is not universal.

I will stand by the comparison, though.

[XaulZan11]

Originally Posted by George1902

Some of the responses in this thread more than disappoint me.

I agree. I don't see a ton of value in pit scouting, but purposefully providing false answer, isn't very good. On a very practical level, if I find the answers provided don't match the truth, I'm totally going to knock you down our pick list. Either you don't know your robot, you're a jerk or you don't take it seriously. I prefer not to compete with and depend on those teams.

[MrJohnston]

I had no idea that so many folks treated scouters like this... Wow.

We do pit scouting for different reasons, depending on the game. This year, we are going to want to know what sort of defenses they "think" they can cross -early in the competition, we will not have much information on this at all. Our scouters will look at wheels and drivetrains... Etc.... When we have seen a robot at a different competition, we'll ask them about upgrades... If the robot struggled with something either a previous week or earlier in the weekend, we'll ask how they are doing with fixing the issue.. We like to get a feel for the personality of a team - we we enjoy working with them in eliminations?

More importantly, however, we often send our younger kids out to pit scout so they can interact with other folks in FIRST, experience Gracious Professionalism, and see how other teams operate - both with robot construction but personal interactions. Commonly, we'll send more introverted students around in pairs as it provides moral support and helps them to learn to engage and interact better with others.

I don't judge what other scouts ask us. Just as we send scouters out for lots of different reasons, we assume other teams do as well. We also recognize that often the information pit scouts bring back is completely secondary to the experience they are getting....

Reading some of the comments above, I understand why some of my kids at Champs last year decided they didn't want to pit scout any more.