Make Scouting Fun?

[Grant Cox]

I love this question, instead of just another "what system do you use" thread. The approach that we've taken on 148 to answer this question follows two major tenets.

Make scouting (and strategy, and picking) a priority not just for scouts, but for the team as a whole.

If you establish a culture where everyone on the team understands the importance of scout data, then scouts themselves are more inclined to take ownership and develop a passion for their work. Some examples...

• During the off-season, much like mechanical subteams practice drivetrain CAD and such, we brainstorm and test new scouting systems (tablets? paper? laptops? scantrons?).
• When discussing robot strategy immediately after kickoff, "what does a winning alliance look like" comes up before "what does a winning robot look like".
• During events, Friday night data (top scorers, top autons, etc) are shared with the entire team so they can get a feel for what it is that we've been doing all day in the stands.
• Exceptional picks, "dark horse" 3rd partners, etc are celebrated with a prominence similar to an outstanding driver performance.

An unfortunately common sentiment on some teams is that students "assigned" to scouting are the "leftovers" after you've already determined drive team, pit crew, etc. I'm proud to say that on 148, as a result of the above, it's almost the opposite - we have some students who sign up for scouting/strategy before applying for anything else.


Take the mindlessness out of mindless data collection - make it your own.

We try to inject playfulness into otherwise monotonous data collection wherever possible. Many teams come up with their own vernacular to describe game elements - we own it. For example, in 2015 there was no field on our sheets for "Recycling Containers taken from the Step in Autonomous". We referred to that power move as "robbing the bank", and thus the scouting sheet had "# of banks robbed", the pick list had "best bank robbers", etc.

Students also decorate their own clipboards, are encouraged to put some personality into qualitative comments, etc.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Karthik's betting suggestion - we love this too, and have a few "betting games" that the scouts sometimes play in the stands. Not only does it gamify match scouting, it also incentivizes students to know more about every robot on the field. It's easy to bet on an alliance made up of three powerhouse teams, but it takes a good scout to guess how a match between two "average" alliances will play out.