2016 Scouting Ideas/Apps

[Citrus Dad]

I love seeing all of the scouting systems posted here. It's expanding the scope of technical challenges for students to achieve.

[Robomom457]

I have been to the App Store and downloaded the app, I have gone to github and tried to follow the links, but I am unable to download/find the "useable" version of morscout. What am I doing wrong?

[Farbod909]

Originally Posted by Robomom457

I have been to the App Store and downloaded the app, I have gone to github and tried to follow the links, but I am unable to download/find the "useable" version of morscout. What am I doing wrong?

http://github.com/mortorqrobotics/morscout-2015 is a usable version of MorScout. However, it is designed for the 2015 game. MorScout 2.0 is currently in development and will be finished by the beginning of week 1 competitions.

[ANiyaz]

FRC 868 released FRC GamePlan, an Android application primarily designed for tablets so teams devise game strategy. FRC Teams can easily share their devised strategies with other teams using Bluetooth. Features also in the app include match saving and restoring, manipulation of robots and boulders, a pen tool to draw out certain movements, and match notes!

Link follows as below:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ds.frcgameplan

[anishde]

After a paper scouting disaster last year, we're looking to mooch off some other team for a scouting service

[evanperryg]

I'd like to expand a little on my previous post. My team has used a few main methods of scouting over the last three years, and each certainly had its merits. I'll lay them out below:
Paper Scouting
In terms of ergonomics, paper is by far the best. It's so easy to understand that it requires virtually no scouter training for it to work. However, it comes with so many glaring problems that I'd never use it again. The biggest issue is entry- in order to keep up with the onslaught of papers, I had to be in the stands, typing in data for the entire duration of the event. Not only is this tedious, it's stressful, uncomfortable, and horribly inefficient. Taking turns on entry would be fine too, but still incredibly tedious and shift changes can put you behind very easily. I would only recommend this to new and entry-level scouting teams who don't have the time to take advantage of the numerous better options.
Game Controllers
Game controllers are a good option for teams who want to go a step above paper, but don't have the programming skills to go with an app or database. It's pretty easy to make with a basic understanding of java. Just have data entries export to a text file, import it into excel, and you're golden. The biggest problem with this system is that it's horribly uncomfortable for scouters. Game controllers were never designed for data entry and they don't lend themselves well to it, outside of the ease of programming. Expect significant data inaccuracies and headaches over tangled cables.
Apps
This is the gold standard, without a doubt. Android Studio has a learning curve, but it comes with a vast set of awesome tools that make app development easier. Almost everyone has a smartphone, so it's very accessible. Having the app export data to a text file is easy, and will work consistently. However, this method can cause issues, as some devices will save the text file in places that can't be accessed easily (phones with emulated SD cards do this) and ensuring everyone is giving their phones over for data ripping can be annoying. We did this last season, and found great success with it. The data is reliable, the management is easy, and the backend is simple. However, if you're really looking for a god-tier scouting system, an app that interfaces with a database is the only way. With a broadband card on a laptop in the pit, you can have live data updates between the stands and the pit, without breaking tournament rules. The data aggregates itself, so there's no headaches over data reliability.

So, now that I've layed that all out, here's team 2338's scouting system for the 2016 Season- GearScout.
Features:

• Universal: Available for both iPhones and Androids. Both applications do the exact same thing.
• Simplicity: Communication with an Amazon DynamoDB noSQL database- all data is aggregated live, and requires no extra overhead. We manage the server, you manage the app. Simply fetch your data from the database using your team number and the FIRST event code.
• Security: Backups are made in the form of text files on every device so, in case something goes wrong, data can be recovered easily.
• Comprehensive: Tracking of qualitative and quantitative scouting data, so evaluations of teams can be well-rounded and comprehensive.
• Reputation: Two teams on Einstein last season used our scouting app, and many other reputable teams found great success with GearScout throughout the season.
• Versatility: GearScout data can be easily imported to Excel, Access, Tableau, and any data management software that supports text file imports or PHP requests. We are developing a Java applet that will communicate directly with the server, take the data you've requested, and spit out an easily-manageable text file with only the data you've requested. We are also experimenting with the addition of ODBC support, which will make live data connections even easier. If you decide to use the backup files saved on the phones, instead, we also include a Windows batch file which will quickly combine all the files together, once they're copied to the same folder on your system.

[btcshields6]

Google Forms worked well for us last year, and we're already building a new set of forms for this year.

[Robomom457]

How did you use Google Forms offline? Or I guess how did you use it period? thanks

[maxnz]

Originally Posted by The Doctor

I'm making a scouting webapp to compile numerical data on team performance during qualification rounds. It's a bit limited in that it needs a computer or a tablet with wired internet (because Wifi is disallowed). Like I said, it's only for match scouting, and we'll probably use a separate mobile app or paper for pit scouting.
As stated here, pit scouting is likely much less valuable than actual match scouting. If people are interested, I might publish the code.

Totally interested in seeing how you made this. Also, this does seem like something my team could use. With your permission, I'd like to change the code (locally) slightly to optimize it for my team.

[CindiCC]

Our team is trying out the survey program Harvest Your Data. Holds the data on the device until later syncing. Will get us through the first day of a District event, we might shift to paper the 2nd day but at least 60 percent of our data will already be entered.

[maxnz]

Originally Posted by CindiCC

Our team is trying out the survey program Harvest Your Data. Holds the data on the device until later syncing. Will get us through the first day of a District event, we might shift to paper the 2nd day but at least 60 percent of our data will already be entered.

Are you utilizing the free trial or have you made an agreement with the company? Or do you pay the $89 for the service?

[catmanjake]

I am reading quite a bit on apps on these threads. However, how us everyone getting all data to one source? I am seeing where people are stating downloading time servers, etc. We thought we had a solution until we came across the following rule.

T4 Teams may not set up their own 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz or 5GHz) wireless communication (e.g. $@#access points or ad-hoc networks) in the venue.

A wireless hot spot created by a cellular device is considered an access point.

[CindiCC]

Originally Posted by maxnz

Are you utilizing the free trial or have you made an agreement with the company? Or do you pay the $89 for the service?

We set up a one time survey with a longer "expiration" time than one month.

[Jcarbon]

I'm pretty surprised by all the hate for paper scouting. We're interested in an electronic system, but paper has worked out really well for us in the past, albeit with a lot of thought and organization going into the system. Especially if you want robust scouting but can't afford devices for electronic scouting, I recommend paper scouting.

This is how our system works: Each team at the event has a sheet, with lines for each match. We have at least 6 people in the stands scouting at all times, each scouting one team. Then, they pass the sheets to someone who enters the data into an Excel sheet. Before each match, we print off a sheet with information for the drive team about the teams in the match. The whole time, we have some experienced people scouting qualitatively.

Here are some of the things that I think make it go smoothly:

• Training scouts in advance
• Planning how to organize the sheets
• Having a printer to print sheets
• Having a good database to analyze the data (ask Basel A if you have questions about that)

If you have any questions or want to see the sheets, feel free to message me.