Tableau at PNW Districts

[Sunnykx]

Scouting Recap of Glacier Peak.docx

Our Team (CPR - #3663) used Tableau to analyze our match scouting data at the Week 2 PNW Glacier Peak Competition. I am hoping that I successfully attached a copy of our Tableau dashboard in this post. Tableau has been a huge factor in our scouting the last two seasons. We were introduced to it by Quinn Schiller on Team 1983, Skunkworks Robotics. It helped us become a captain in our division at World's in 2015 (losing to 1114 and 148 in the Finals) and contributed heavily to our winning Glacier Peak last weekend.

Tableau is a very powerful tool. It takes our dry Excel data and transforms it into beautiful pictures and graphs that help organize and clarify our information. There is a bit of learning curve with it, but their are multiple tutorials on the Tableau site and through FIRST that can help answer any questions.

At Glacier Peak, we used our Tableau dashboard, hopefully attached here, to convince the top seed, Team 2522, to pick us in alliance selections. Prior to our lobbying, they weren't even considering us. We showed them that we were a perfect complement to their team (we are heavy shooters and breachers, they are heavy breachers and they shoot some low goals). Having been alerted to our existence by our compelling data, they then watched us in our next match. We made five high goals and breached heavily, including the Category A defenses (Portcullis and Cheval de Friese). They then watched the number two seed, who had similar data, perform. We drove more aggressively and quickly and adjusted on the fly to our partner's difficulties. They were convinced we were the best choice and picked us. We went on to win the competition.

This brings me to the subject of qualitative scouting. We have eight people dedicated to quantitative scouting (6 match scouters, 1 Excel data entry person, and 1 Tableau analyst). We have two scouters dedicated to qualitative scouting. We use the quantitative data as the basis for all match strategy preparation and then incorporate the qualitative data to make final decisions. The qualitative data helps us evaluate driver skill (critically important in this year's competition), robot speed and consistency, the flexibility of a team to change strategy mid-match if necessary, and how much partners work well together. Quantitative data can suggest this information (consistency in scoring across matches, amount of defenses crossed and points made to suggest speed) but simple words such as "unreliable" and "fast" convey a wealth of information quickly. The qualitative and quantitative data together help provide a complete picture of a team and provide checks and balances for one another.

I am hoping that more teams will use Tableau. I love it when I see teams making informed, wise decisions in match strategy and alliance selections. I think it elevates the level of play for everyone. While not everyone has the staffing available to make up a full scouting team, it's not hard to combine with other teams to pool data. Our team is always willing to work with other teams to share our process and we post our bar charts at competition.

I'd be curious to learn if other teams use Tableau or something similar.

Good luck to everyone at Stronghold!