Picking for the finals

[FIRST JerseyKid]

Hey im from team 1089 team mercury, first place seed in galileo for 2005. We did not exspect to do so well at nationals. Our team was having problems getting our list together for picking for finals... Mainly our biggest problems were a) All our scouters and 70% of our team are new to Robotics b) We had a scouting team of around 6 c) The drive team and experienced FIRST Robotics people on our team were always busy and never could see rounds.

So I wanted to ask: How do you make a list up when you dont have alot of scouters and experienced teammates?

I want to thank the teams we did choose cause they were great partners 1280 and moe.

[George A.]

Hey congrats on your 1st place seed. We (11) were with you in trenton, and it's good to see you did awesomely. As far as scouting, I remember my freshman year our scout team was myself and one other person. We basically knew the game, and all we did was keep track of simple statistics during each match. Granted that game was a little more complex.

For instance this year you could have them keep track of what a team did in autonomous, how they picked up a tetra, if they mainly used the human player or auto loader, and how many tetras they could get in a match. If you have six people you just assign one robot per person.

That's just my input

By the way, do you have any shirts that you're willing to trade?

[Bill Moore]

So I wanted to ask: How do you make a list up when you dont have alot of scouters and experienced teammates?

First off Eric, thanks to team 1089 for picking MOE as an ally in the playoffs. It was an exciting time.

In this years game, if you had a small scouting team, the important items were 1) how many tetras did a robot cap in a round, and 2) how many different goals were claimed with these caps.

These would give you a rough estimate of speed, capping capability, and how well the drive team played the game. Teams that scout seriously often look at many more capabilities (autonomous, endplay, tetra storage, etc.), but the basics of identifying the best bots and drive teams for this game would be captured by these two items.

[ngreen]

In your case with lack of experienced scouters I would make sure the limited number of scouters watched for a limited number of aspects to each team's robot. Keep track of the 2 or 3 stats you think are most important.

The drive team is very important in the scouting too. I would recommend a scouting meeting on Friday night to gather the scouters data for the day. Here both the scouters, drive team, and experienced members can get together to make a short list. Things that make a difference usually are the stats, how their robot compliments your alliance, and how well the team works with your team.

If all else is the same I would pick a team that can work well with your team. If you wish to be really in charge of the alliance they should take instructions well and be able to work with the strategy you lay out. In some cases you could instead look for a team that has good strategic planning and let their ideas lead your alliance. By this time you should know if your robot is better at leading an alliance or if your robot is really good at executing strategy. So you have to make your choices here.

As a note, pictures of each team's robot are nice too. We've used the sticker polaroid film in the past and they've worked well.

Anyways, congrats on your #1 seed. I've heard my team was excited with their win over your alliance, but I wasn't able to see it. Good luck on your future scouting and without a massive scouting team I still think you chose 2 very good partners.

[Netrilix]

We thought we would have some trouble with scouting, given the fact that we realized more than half of our scouts were lost to Vex at the last minute. We pulled through pretty well by doing a few key things.

Our freshmen were trained to scout at regionals, and we could see then and there which ones would be into it and which ones would give us nothing for scouting sheets. Though we lost them for the first two days (Vex), we had them scouting Friday night for a while. In addition, we had 3 senior members scouting the entire time. I handed each of them one team per match to fill out a sheet for, and we ended up with at least 2 matches for most teams.

Basically you can get enough scouting with three people who will be working hard, as long as you trust these people to do what you ask them to.

I had also coded a nice system over the build season that allowed us to enter teams and match info, and then it would generate averages for each team in each catagory I selected. We focused mainly on tetras stacked, with a little focus on whether or not they did well in autonomous. Other than that, we mainly looked at the comments section of our scouting sheets. Stuff like "tipped over" and "very impressive but blocked most of the match" really help.

For next year, I'm thinking I might make my scouting system public, with logins for each team to enter their own information and view the teams they had looked at. I would have this year, but it just wasn't coded to allow that.

[FIRST JerseyKid]

I think what happened is our drive team and people not on scouting trying to help make a list mest it all up. We didnt trust our scouters enough but im glad it still worked out well at the end

[Joe Ross]

I'd say we did fairly decently scouting, and with a very small team.

We had 10 students total, 9 in atlanta. Our drive team doubled as our pit crew, and we rotated one or two additional students in to talk to judges and other teams. When it was all said and done, we didn't have enough to have one person per robot, let alone anyone for data entry.

So, we got everyone involved. Engineers, parents, and siblings all helped scout and enter data.


Here's a hint, the more objective the data, the easier it is for anyone to scout.

[Greg Ross]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Here's a hint, the more objective the data, the easier it is for anyone to scout.

To be a little more specific, to each person scouting, we assigned one robot to watch during each match. The most important data we collected were:

1. How many tetras were picked up
2. Where they were picked up from (human player station, auto load station, or from the floor)
3. How many of those tetras were scored
4. Where they were scored (under a goal, on center goal, or on another goal)

[Wayne C.]

What I want to know is why is Erik using a picture of ME in his postings!! ?

Geez- you leave the PC for a minute.....



WC

[Wayne C.]

Originally Posted by Wayne C.

What I want to know is why is Erik using a picture of ME in his postings!! ?

Geez- you leave the PC for a minute.....



WC

BTW- I think 1089 did great last weekend and I am very proud of them. Proud poppa stuff- Erik was the drive coach and his sister Danielle was the head scout. We have FIRST teams all over the place around here.....