Your Scouting System

[vadyr]

we're pretty low-tech. i know a lot of teams record each match, set up excel spreadsheets, and what not....but we just use pink pieces of paper that have who we are with, who we are against...and thats pretty much it. we don't go around and take pictures or scout at the pits....we just watch each match and record some simple notes...but i do have to give a lot of the credit to our lead scouter, BT....he is just a mastermind at scouting...we've had several occasions where we won against an awesome alliance, mostly due to his strategies...so good job BT! but i hope to soon be able to buy him a palm pilot or a cheap laptop or some kind so that we can be a little more hi-tech. but as low tech as we are, we seem to be pretty efficient and effective with scouting. good luck teams!

[Sean Marks]

Our setup is pretty simple. Im lead scout so what were doing in 1 laptop (with many batteries ) I assign 1 person to watch a robot in a match to get information, then they report to me. I also when free go to the pit and ask any teams i have questions for. Its working really well and we've made some really good plans from it. I cant wait to see what happens tomorrow.

Sean

(Oh also were using an excel spreadsheet and we have a wireless printer set up to print out hard copies.)

[Scott Perry]

I've got another question for you other guys. What do you use your scouting data for? Do you try and use it for every match so you go in with a plan, or only for alliance picking, or both?

[Jack Jones]

Ours will involve a great deal of thought and analysis.
Meanwhile, I'll have a match list tally with +1 good - 0 average - -1 bad.
Finally after much debate - we'll go with the +0-

[AChastain]

Cyber Blue uses our collected info in the eliminations.

This year we have a much more organized scouting team and some new PDA's we're dying to try out.

We are planning to record all of the information that we decide is important on the individual PDA's and then transfer them to a single hard dive where it will be sorted and passed along to our strategist.

[tjcasser]

768 has been doing it the old-fashioned way (six scouts in the stands working with paper reporting sheets and two or three with pit-reporting sheets doing interviews) for a few years now. The issue becomes a paper-shuffle before each of our matches to see what the capabilities and performance of the other teams involved are.

Last year, we abortively tried a PDA-based application that just got away from us, but ended up resorting to the paper sheets again when it became too large of a task to get everything entered in a timely fashion. This year's assumption was simply to go with the paper sheets anyway, with having a laptop in the stands to run our new application and collect the data. The base idea is that it should take the person on the laptop no more than a minute to enter the information on a single match.. and thus far in our tests (Trenton on Friday), it seemed to be working fine, since no one has proposed to change the system before Finger Lakes next week.

We'll see how it works for us.

[ewankoff]

I was really impressed by our scouting system this year, and believe it or not it was developed by a couple of freshman!

Luckily our district provided every student with a laptop computer. We used this asset to have scouts directly input data to a data base. We were able to search this database for specific points of interest. We were also able to share this info with other teams through a wireless network which about 1/3 of the teams accesed. This scouting database really helped us get to be 3rd seed and semifinalists at NJ this year as well as helping us get the J&J sportsmanship award.

[VanMan]

We didn't scout really. We just picked the teams that looked cool. We also didn't care what they said they could do. We care what they really can do.

[whytheheckme]

Originally Posted by ewankoff

and believe it or not it was developed by a couple of freshman!

lol, that's not nice.

Jacob

[SteveGPage]

We also use a combination of paper and computer scouting. We have 6 kids in the stands looking at each robot during a match - counting rings scored, ramping, etc... and we send several kids to the pits for detailed team information. All of that information is feed into an Access database. We use all of that data to help determine strategy before a match. If anyone would like a copy of the access database that we have developed, I would be happy to send it to you. If you are going to be in Annapolis at the Chesapeake Regional, come see us and we can give you a copy of what we use.

Originally Posted by tjcasser

768 has been doing it the old-fashioned way (six scouts in the stands working with paper reporting sheets and two or three with pit-reporting sheets doing interviews) for a few years now. The issue becomes a paper-shuffle before each of our matches to see what the capabilities and performance of the other teams involved are.

Last year, we abortively tried a PDA-based application that just got away from us, but ended up resorting to the paper sheets again when it became too large of a task to get everything entered in a timely fashion. This year's assumption was simply to go with the paper sheets anyway, with having a laptop in the stands to run our new application and collect the data. The base idea is that it should take the person on the laptop no more than a minute to enter the information on a single match.. and thus far in our tests (Trenton on Friday), it seemed to be working fine, since no one has proposed to change the system before Finger Lakes next week.

We'll see how it works for us.

[chewy]

Originally Posted by ewankoff

believe it or not it was developed by a couple of freshman!

Thanks

[Fred Sayre]

We have a access database seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27047719@N00/411506903/

We make paper scouting sheets that mimic the access form for 6 kids to record the match data, which is then fed into the database for calculation of averages and robot comparisons. Overall it is a lot of work, but provides us with really good strategical information as well as an almost instant list for picking alliance members.

[acumenerratica]

Team RICE 870 is proud to announce that in a matter of hours, "Fluffy Network" will make its official debut at the Finger Lakes Regional. Comprised of a Filemaker Pro 8.5 Database, an Adobe Lightroom-generated photo gallery, and LAN messaging implementation, Fluffy Network is our end-to-end system for Pit Scouting, Match Scouting, Robot Photography, and Stands-to-Pit Communications.

It goes something like this:
1) Pit interview data is entered into my half-broken (::tear: macbook, the drive team can read this in real time
2) Match data is entered in real time by scouts at inverter-powered computers in the stands, the drive team can read this in real time
3) An elegant photo gallery of tagged robot pictures is available to both the Pit and Stands
4) A NASA Mission Control Style communication link provides a dialogue connection between the drive team and the stands, so the drive team can ask scouts anything not covered by the metrics
5) A printer in the pit allows strategy plans and scout reports to be in the hands of the drive team as they walk up to their alliance.
6) All this is served wirelessly by a Linksys WRT54G covered in fur, hence "Fluffy Network"

our only problem is we are about 3 laptops short at this regional, and are relegated to doing half our match scouting electronically, and half on paper, to be entered when there's time...

any Finger Lakes Regional teams that have 3 laptops they want to spare (and/or scouts)...we would love to form a co-op, and would obviously open FluffyNet access to you in return for your help

anyone?

[bduddy]

We have one sheet of paper for each team, and each scout (Scouts make up most of our team at competitions) usually gets around 3-5 teams. They follow the same teams for the whole competition, both watching matches and interviewing in pits (we haven't done this before...), trading teams if need be when their assignments conflict. This is how we've always done it, but this year, we're actually doing it with some degree of organization... which makes me happy

[meatmanek]

See, all you people are trying to come up with some sort of mathematical formula for which team is best. Have a group of dedicated people sit in the stands and watch every match, and then discuss between matches (who did something cool, who was dependable, who scored the most, who would be best as our partner)

Then have them make a list of the top 20 robot picks. They'll remember the good ones, and the less impressive teams won't show up on the list. Because your scouters are focusing on the actual robot and gameplay, rather than what the team says they can do, or statistics of wins/losses, you'll get much better results.

Have one of these people be your team representative. Have him/her take the list if you get picked or get to choose.