How Many Teams Are Going To Track Defenses To Stump Opposition

[Ryan Dognaux]

Scouting this year, possibly more than any other year, can directly impact your chance to win a match. Knowing which defenses your opponents cannot handle will be a big part of FIRST Stronghold.

[Greg Needel]

I believe this is important also, but I want to point out something that makes this less important than teams may think.

I would venture a guess that in 80%+ of matches we will see the same 5 defenses used. Because they are in pairs, in most cases there is a slightly harder one of the two for the regular team to cross.

For example I believe that the CDF will be one of the more rarely used ones as it's partner the portcullis is generally going to be harder for teams to deal with. The same can be said for the Rockwall, Ramparts, and Sally port.

So while it will be good to collect data on all team and if there turns out to be a different one which is harder ( the moat comes to mind) the. By all means switch it up, but I still contend that the most of the changes we see will be in the position, and not which ones are actually used.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

For example I believe that the CDF will be one of the more rarely used ones as it's partner the portcullis is generally going to be harder for teams to deal with. The same can be said for the Rockwall, Ramparts, and Sally port.

You're voluntarily erecting a giant wall right in front of your drivers?

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

You're voluntarily erecting a giant wall right in front of your drivers?

To be fair, like 85% of that wall is see through.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by JohnSchneider

You're voluntarily erecting a giant wall right in front of your drivers?

It's going to be there anyway only 10 ft farther down the field. I believe that teams will most likey choose the hardest defenses for their apponents regardless of personal impact. Also teams need to realize that their vision is going to be totally blocked anyway, so hopefully they are well practiced at " driving blind"

[Alex Webber]

Our team will deliver this type of data on a tablet to our drive team 4 matches in advance to all of our matches.

I hope to post a white paper when I can.

[mathking]

I will add a couple pieces of hard won advice. If you lack the people to do scouting, see if you can partner up with another team. We have always had sufficient numbers to scout, but are also always willing to work with and share data with other teams.

Also, put a lot more reliance on what you see on the field than in what your pit scouting tells you. I have lost track of the number of times someone from some team has said something like "they are using tank drive so they won't be able to maneuver well enough" or "we never pick mecanum drive robots." Without bothering to actually see how the robots perform on the field. In particular I remember once at QCR having a couple of teams say "Team X is doing well, but they are mecanum so we aren't going to pick them. They will be too easy to defend. We are going to pick Y or Z." So they did not pick a MUCH better performing robot.

I have found that looking at what teams actually show they can accomplish and how well they play the game is a much better way to scout than to ask them about what powers their drive train or how fast their robot is. We keep qualitative observations about the robots we observe in each match as well. Sometimes a note like "The driver has been able to consistently out-maneuver defenders" can be important when you are deciding match strategy or who to pick.

Finally, I think this is a year when you will want to scout the practice matches pretty well. A lot of teams will use practice matches to test their ability to go over different defenses, while in qualifying matches they will try to go to their strengths. I can easily see making a mistake of assuming a team has trouble with a particular defense because you don't see them try that during qualifying.