Who else uses scouting sheets?

[Jeff Waegelin]

In the past 6 years, I've used strictly paper 3 times, an Access database once, Pocket PCs once, and a paper/excel hybrid once. Each, I've found, has its own benefits and problems.

Paper is generally the easiest to use if you have limited resources and limited planning/preparation time. You can make a good paper scouting system in a couple of hours, print it out, and you're done. Paper allows for maximum flexibility in writing notes, drawing pictures, and generally using it for whatever you feel is necessary information. It also has the lowest "learning curve" for bringing new scouting people up to speed. That being said, paper is cumbersome. Often times, sheets aren't filled out properly (or at all!), and whoever is organizing the scouting has to sift through reams and reams of paper to find the relevant information. You also have to keep all the sheets organized, and it usually takes one dedicated person just to organize sheets for the 6 scouters. All things considered, however, if I were to be running scouting again, with a small team, I'd probably stick with paper because of the simplicity of management and development.

The method my team used this year was one step up in technology: using Excel to record data from scouting sheets (which were shared with another team). This was helpful in that it allowed us (a very small team) to share scouting data with another, larger team. It consolidated the data into one place for viewing, which was also nice. However, the sheets we used were poorly designed for excel viewing, and the people who recorded data into excel often missed important things, like the fact that 365 liked to drive up onto the ramp to score. If I were to do this again, I would design my own sheets to be computer-oriented from the beginning, and possibly consider a more robust program, like Access, for managing data.

The most complicated method I've ever used was the Pocket PC system my high school team used in 2003. We had 5 Pocket PCs, 4 for recording match data, and one for the drive team to view before matches. The software was written from scratch by one of the students, and it could be viewed in Pocket Internet Explorer. All the data then went into a database on a laptop in the stands. It was supposed to be synchronized using Wi-Fi, but the amount of interference, and the low power of the wireless on the PPCs made this impossible. We resorted to using sync cables to manually synchronize data, which was very difficult and cumbersome. We also had issues with students playing solitaire instead of scouting Being able to pull up pictures of each of the match's robots, and view any data I wanted before a match was a nice touch, but the system itself was... difficult to work with at best. A more robust and organized system might have solved this, but I never really warmed up to the palm scouting idea. If I had a large budget (palms are the most expensive method) and lots of pre-season software development time or enough personnel to program it during the season, I might consider it again, though.

Of everything I used, though, the one that worked best was the Access database. I used it in 2002, which, fortunately was a simple game. We had one person enter all the data directly into the computer. It was comprehensive, easy to use, and very easy to get data out. Unfortunately, given the complexity of most games, it wouldn't be possible to do it exactly like this anymore. If I were to do it now, though, I think it would be fairly easy to have scouters write information on sheets or palms, and import the data into Access. It makes things a lot easier to view than Excel, and it's easier to organize volumes of data into a structure that makes sense. If I had my way, this is probably how I'd do scouting, as a paper/Access hybrid, or maybe palm/Access if I'm feeling adventurous.