Advice for a hapless rookie?

[ScoutingJunky]

There's a lot of good advice in this thread, however I might add that you should be tactful in what you put on the scouting forms. No matter what you think of a robot you should be sure to be polite in your evaluation of them. I mean, who knows, you may be their partners in the next round and they may ask to see your sheet on them (it's happened to me before, luckily there wasn't anything bad on the form).

Also, when making your scouting form, be sure to make as many fields as possible check boxes or multiple choice. This is really important because it is a really hard game to scout this year, and the less you have to think while scouting the more information you will be able to record.

In my experience (I've been scouting since my day one, and am in my second year as head scout) I have found that the more scouts you have the better. My perfect system has 9 people working constantly.

6 to fill out the scouting forms, one person per team.

1 to organize the scouting binder and make sure that the 6 get the forms for the next match in time.

1 to enter all of the information in to a computer data base and provide the last person (me) with any statistics he/she needs for the next match.

And the last person overseeing everything and watching the matches as a whole instead of just at individual robots. This person also takes notes on robots that to exceptionally well, break down, or what have you. In addition this person takes the scouting sheets for all 5 of the other robots in the team's next match, gets all of the statistics for those robots from the guy on the computer, and runs it down to the pit to talk it over with the drivers and the coach to get the best strategy for that match.

In an even more perfect world you'd have a couple extra guys so you can actually take breaks, get a drink, something to eat or just sit back and enjoy a match. But, when you're at a competition not too close to home it doesn't always work out.

good luck to everyone, and to everyone going to the Silicon Valley Regional: I'll see you there