Lack of passion in scouting

[Nawaid Ladak]

im making a spreadsheet of scouting data aas we speak, and i look on here, these kids just leave stuff off, plus listen to this

What should be put there

Robot speed: 12ft/sec.

What the kid put down

Robot Speed: Very Fast

Im going to explain to these kids how important scouting is in a regional, and how it can be sued. then im going to give them their papers back adn tell them to bring tese back filled out CORRECTLY

[Guy Davidson]

Not me. I scout and handle strategy on our team by choice. It's a combination if being excited and seeing how other teams did and what they did, and a "know thy enemy" factor - you can't coach on the field if you don't know what you're going against.

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by FreedomForce

im making a spreadsheet of scouting data aas we speak, and i look on here, these kids just leave stuff off, plus listen to this

What should be put there

Robot speed: 12ft/sec.

What the kid put down

Robot Speed: Very Fast

Im going to explain to these kids how important scouting is in a regional, and how it can be sued. then im going to give them their papers back adn tell them to bring tese back filled out CORRECTLY

haha, i was hoping that it wasnt that bad. if u ever see me, i wont do that to u. i promise.

[Nawaid Ladak]

Originally Posted by cziggy343

haha, i was hoping that it wasnt that bad. if u ever see me, i wont do that to u. i promise.

no, im referring to the kid writing that down WITHOUT asking the team. btw:
thanks, and nice job at VCU, i was rooting for you guys (we teamed up at palmetto in 04 and at Florida in 05)

im still doing that spreadsheet, here is another funny one

Number of wheels: ? or left blank,

thats how it is on at least half of them.

[meatmanek]

The real advice here would be to either get rid of the sheets, make the sheets much more open-ended, or put a lot more detail into the sheets. Then you may need to educate your scouters.

Example:
"How many wheels". Well, our robot has a total of 8 wheels. 6 of them touch the ground. 4 of them drive. Which statistic do you want? Also, those 4 that drive are in pairs, right next to each other, rather than front to back. Most of the time, that's called 2-wheel. See the problem?

There are 2 ways to fix this question on a scouting sheet:

Ask an open ended question, such as "Describe the drivetrain."
Ours would be "Tank drive, 2 CIMs per side with AM Gen 2 shifters, each driving a pair of IFI traction wheels in the back. Casters in the front."

Ask specific questions.
What kind of drivetrain is it? Swerve/Mecanum/Omni/Tank/Other (describe)
How many drive wheels?
What kind of drive wheels?
What kind of transmissions?
What kind, and how many motors per drive wheel?
What kind of casters, if any?

Tank, 2 pairs of 2, IFI traction wheels, AM gen2, 2 CIMs, 2" ball casters.

Now, that sort of information provides a lot more than '6 wheels' or '9 wheels'

If you get rid of the sheets entirely and let the (presumably knowledgeable) scouts write what they think is important, they'll provide information that doesn't fit on those sheets. How many of your sheets provide a question that would handle our (imho) innovative kicker wheel?

[Dominicano0519]

my sittuation is not too much different than yours

sure some kids did the intial interviews with all the teams

but afterwards nothing, not match by match progress.

however that is where our similar situations end

in my point of view scouting in this game is not even of any importance.
i say this because of the messed up algorithm for matches that they used this year. we saw the same teams over and over again, so much that i decided that one person(me) could do all of the scouting.

i mean just by talking to the teams 30 min before the match was enough info to see where and when the robot does what and how often they do it.

and it all worked out very well i predicted what each team was going to do every match we were in, i even predicted the scores for all of the matches with an margin of error close to 5%

Our team is beginning a program for scouting this year where we only go to the pits of teams that we have seen perform well during matches. We then get a lot of detail on the top 12 or so, which are all the teams that our field crew looks at. This method saves time, effort, and ear pain of hearing teams talk about things their robot "can" do, and yet has never done on the field.

Most of the data that we use to pick teams comes straight from watching matches, where opinions mean nothing.

[Dominicano0519]

Originally Posted by 114ManualLabor

Our team is beginning a program for scouting this year where we only go to the pits of teams that we have seen perform well during matches. We then get a lot of detail on the top 12 or so, which are all the teams that our field crew looks at. This method saves time, effort, and ear pain of hearing teams talk about things their robot "can" do, and yet has never done on the field.

Most of the data that we use to pick teams comes straight from watching matches, where opinions mean nothing.

well thats all good but will that strategy work for teams that may just need a
defensive alliance partner in order to score alot of points.

i know that was the case for a couple of teams we played with and against

a team that scored only 2-3 ringers in a match would not be considered a great team(but they were blocked the whole match), with a decent defensive alliance partner they can score 7-8 in a row.

not criticising your strategy or anything im just saying watch out for those teams, there will be quite a few of them out there. I saw 3 here in NJ already

Originally Posted by Dominicano0519

well thats all good but will that strategy work for teams that may just need a
defensive alliance partner in order to score alot of points.

It did work for that. We look at winning alliances that could possibly be formed, not just who has a good scoring mechanism. On the end of ramps, we look at who has a shallow enough lifter to accomodate us, and what kind of drivetrain they have (for defense).

[lenergyrlah]

Don't assign scouting to the "extra" people just to get them out of the pits. Scouts should have done enough work on their own robot to totally know what they're about.

I do all the pit scouting for my team (I made our scouting sheets myself). I decide our team's strategy every match so I know what I'm looking for in our alliance partners and opponents. I did a lot of the mechanical work for our robot (including all the ramp construction) so I only ask "inobvious" stuff like autonomous & weight (not weight class).

I was one of the busiest students at the VCU regional -- I'm on pit crew, strategist, rules expert, and ramp upkeep/repair. The point is that you can probably spare someone who knows what they're about for long enough to scout all the teams -- just make sure you have their phone # before they head off.

BTW if you see me in Atlanta on the floor peering under your robot don't worry -- I'm just counting motors or drive wheels or something.

[Tri_Lam]

scouting is going to be hard for my team we only have like 3 serious members actully going and if lucky tehre will be 4 of us there. if we had atleast two more we can get a photo/camera guy taking video recordings of the game while in play becaus ei know for a fact all 3 of us will be on the field our club pres as driver v-pres other driver n me human player......... just saying u guys got it lucky i notice most teams contain atleast 7 people i went to the lv regional last year one team had a grip or members. humm i think im just jabbering now -_-

W/e GOOD LUCK ALL

[cziggy343]

Originally Posted by FreedomForce

no, im referring to the kid writing that down WITHOUT asking the team. btw:
thanks, and nice job at VCU, i was rooting for you guys (we teamed up at palmetto in 04 and at Florida in 05)

im still doing that spreadsheet, here is another funny one

Number of wheels: ? or left blank,

thats how it is on at least half of them.

ah, yeah, i dont do that either.
and thanks, we like people rooting for us.
and i remember us with yall at palmetto and florida. yall were great.

[AdamHeard]

There was a scout at La who asked how many gears our drivetrain had.

I replied "Well, we have 3 gears in each side... Are you sure you don't mean speed because it is a single speed drivetrain"

To which he replies "Nope, it says gears". He then proceeds to write 3 down.

Later on a member of that team came and asked my how and why we had a 3 speed shifting transmission rather than a 2 or 4.

[Rich Ross]

Just to give heart to the scouts out there. You scouts WILL be the difference on your team. When you scout matches and that data is successfully complied, it helps you pick well, or if you arent ranked it helps you see what the better teams are doing.

My Scouts did a really nice job and i hope yours will too. Don't look at scouting as a chore, because its not. I scouted a bunch, and i enjoyed every minute of it.

[Lisa Perez]

If you have the amount of people, but there seems to be a lack of interest, make shifts within a designated scouting group, so that those scouts know that they have a job to get done, but are also given the chance to take a break from sitting that long. You'll get a lot more response from someone whose shift is 1 hour as opposed to 6 hours.

As applies for any other subteam, it helps a lot to have one or two students completely enthusiastic and willing to lead the scouting group to begin with, because the scouts will look up to their peers (as opposed to what they will do if they are just told to record information).

Ask your scouts to pretend they are creating strategy for a sporting event. Chances are, they'll have a better idea of what needs to be recorded. I know that when I was new to my team in high school, I had no idea what scouting was. If I had been able to make a parallel between robotics and sports, I would have been MUCH better as a scout.

It might even help to point out where scouting helped your driveteam make decisions in matches: "Hey, we played defense on that robot there because that's where they typically score from, and look how well our alliance did", etc. etc. It'll show those scouts that their work really did pay off, and will help them to be proud of their work.