Convincing a team to go electronic

[Ari423]

Last year 423 experimented with a paper/electronic hybrid scouting system. Match data was recorded by hand on faux scantrons and then a central computer scanned and interpreted the scantrons and tabulated the data. It worked fairly well in testing (it was only developed for our last local competition), but it needs some more work before it actually becomes feasible to replace paper-only scouting. The end result, however, will be an electronic scouting system that doesn't cost the team anything (other than paper - we already had a spare laptop and webcam) and doesn't rely on the members' using their own phones (because a number of our members don't have smartphones).

[jweston]

Your strategists and scouters are really the ones to make or break this argument. Their jobs are directly affected by it, for better or worse.

A lot depends on what kind of data they find important. Stats (points scored, misses, fouls, etc.) for each robot works well. Qualitative assessments (stability, execution speed, durability, etc.) or showing illustrations (routes, critical point on the robot, etc.) can be harder to incorporate into a good UI. This is especially true if your UI did not anticipate a game metric your strategists would want.

Does your team currently have the tools to use electronic records in a way that would make a difference to your strategists during an event? If not, you may be putting the cart before the horse.

Regardless of how your team chooses to implement, I recommend ensuring your scouting system serves the people who use it and not the other way around.