How Many Teams Are Going To Track Defenses To Stump Opposition

[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.