Team 768's Scouting Beta

[tjcasser]

Good evening.

Trying to compensate our failed attempt last year at a Windows Mobile scouting application, Team 768's taken just a bit longer this year than planned to get a beta of a scouting application up and running. Just in time for the first week's competitions, we think we have solution that's easy to use and low maintenance.

While it's not fully tested, we'd like to offer it to any team that would like to play around with it this weekend. There will (hopefully) be a link to it on our website (www.team768.org) by the end of the weekend, but in the meantime, the current beta can be downloaded from http://71.206.53.237/webstart/FRCScout.jnlp. The application requires Java SE 5.0 to run (freely available from Sun). As it is a Java WebStart application, updates should be automatically detected and downloaded when you run it while connected to the Internet.

We also have, for import, a CSV with basic information for tomorrow's New Jersey Regional at http://71.206.53.237/webstart/NJ.csv, which can be imported into the application through the menu. If this works out, we'll see if we can't make other regionals' lists available.

Let us know what you think of the application, and good luck to everyone!

[Tim Arnold]

I like it quite a bit! After playing around for about twenty minutes, it seems stable and reliable... although it left some to be desired unfortunately. Some more explanation on how "Quality Points" and "Ranking Points" work would be appreciated.

I don't mean to tear apart your program, but as regionals are fast approaching/here, some features that top my mind:

• Exporting - This is big for a trust factor. If there was a way to export the database to CSV or Excel it would be great to be able to back up to thumb drives or discs. Also, if the team is using more than one computer...
• Merging - ... it would be necessary to keep both databases up to date.
• Photos - Some way to attach photos to teams to keep track of the robots. Not nearly as big of a concern as exporting.
• More variations for quality - To have a slider similar to this (put a number value next to the slider tho, like 1-10 for manual entry)
• Graphic scoring - A virtual rack that you could just click on would be cool (preferably with the current text input boxes beneath for quick changes too)

That should keep you busy for awhile, but ignore the rest until exporting is implemented, this is a game breaker for me. Again, sorry to nitpick but as I said there isn't much time. Quickly here are some of the things I really like about the current version:reliability (havn't had a problem yet), simplicity (clean interface), and potential power.

Anyway, great work with what you have done so far, and with a little more work it will truly shine!

[tjcasser]

Actually, I don't feel bad at all - those are legitimate points. I'll try to address them.

* Export - I just, honestly, haven't had time yet to build a CSV exporter. (The import function was introduced literally on Tuesday, when my brother-in-law pointed out that it would be helpful.) In the interim, when you save, it puts the files into c:\FRC2007 (in separate subdirectories for matches, regionals and teams), so that could be copied to a thumb drive for backup as a poor-man's solution until export is finished.
* Merging - Again, it was brought up, but we haven't had time to get around to it. This would require a bit more work, but is something that is under development as a necessary item.
* Photos - I have that on my plate for Saturday, once I get back from Trenton. (We're taking our drive team up for just tomorrow, as our first regional is Finger Lakes in a week, but we wanted to see some game-play.) That's actually easy, and we just need to set up the GUI to accommodate it.
* Sliders - I'm not quite sure what you're meaning by this - if you could explain what you're imagining, we can see how it could be accommodated.
* Graphical Scoring - Actually, I thought that would have been neat to have. It was not implemented due to lack of time, but...

The Quality Points and Ranking Points are actually straight from the manual, believe it or not - they're how rankings are done for the seeding. Quality points are 2 points for a win, 1 for a tie. Ranking points are: Winning team gets the losing team's score (without penalties), losing team gets their score (with penalties assessed), and teams in a tie situation get their score (with penalties assessed).

Also, in case you did not realize, you can click on the table headers to resort the data based on the columns. (And yes, if you hold down the control key, you can sort based on multiple columns.) We've been using this to emulate the seeding due to our not having a 'standings' algorithm yet.

Plus, one other thing - I realize it could get 'messy' with multiple regionals in there. There is an option under the file menu (File -> Options) to filter based on a selection of regionals. The Quality Points and Ranking Points do update to reflect the matches for the selected regionals.

I hope that answers some of the questions.

[nautica]

Looks pretty cool. How do you associate teams with their regional? (So I can use the filter)

[tjcasser]

We hadn't, as of yet, set up a method to specifically associate a team with a regional. The filtering through the options will reduce the matches list to the selected regional(s) and change the statistics on the team listing to reflect only the filtered matches.

That said, I can't imagine it would be too difficult to actually have it filter to show only the teams that have played matches at the filtered regionals - it's just code. If that would be something that folks would find useful, I can put it on the to-do list.

[tjcasser]

There has been an update to the scouting application tonight. The beauty of Web Start is that if you run it connected to the internet, it should update on your next startup.

Changes:

• Fixed the sorting so it resorts properly on the team view when new matches are added. Useful for if you're trying to keep up-to-date with the theoretical seeding process.
• Changed wording on team screen - It now says 'Qualifying Points' instead of 'Quality Points' to better match the rule book.
• Added views for up to two user-selected images per team. Images are selectable through menu options in the team frame.
• Readjusted the match scoring screen to put Red on the left to better resemble the scoreboard at the regional.
• Added a prototype for graphical scoring. Select 'Show Scoring Grid' on the match window and it will appear. Directions are posted right at the top of the window to avoid confusion on how to manipulate the scoring.

Match Qualifying Points and Match Ranking Points are assessed according to rule 9.3 in the 2007 competition book.

There will probably be more changes between now and next week's regionals, once we have a chance to sit down and see what is possible before then, and what needs to be fixed.

[tjcasser]

For anyone that's been looking at our scouting software (or using it previously), we've updated it with a few new features and bugfixes.

Added:

• Graphical scoring now feeds the match page - If you update the graphical scoring to show the ring positions, it will update the match panel with the right numbers (but not update the scores themselves) when you save the changes.
• Scoring statistics on the team page - there's a new button that will display the information accumulated from the graphical scoring. If you use the graphical scoring at all, it will now show you basic statistics on where a team has scored in previous matches.

Fixed:

• The graphical scoring panel's button should not be active without all six teams being listed on the match form. (The panel gets fed the team numbers at its creation.)

As always, comments/critiques are welcome. This is still, as before, a work in progress.

[tjcasser]

First, we'd like to thank Greg Needel and Team 73 for their testing the application for us this week.

With their input, there's been a push to add in one more major feature in time for tomorrow's matches - statistical sorting. We've added a pane to the Options menu called 'Ranking' (and renamed the 'standings' column accordingly) that will assign an ordered place in the list based on the criteria selected. It should be noted that this was just added and may be a little buggy.

So, if you want the latest version, just click on the link above in my first post and it will pull the fresh version. (The beauty of WebStart is the instant updates.) Data for prior versions will not be damaged by the update.

Your comments/critiques are welcome.

[Guy Davidson]

In my opinion, this is one of the better apps posted this year. Team 8 will probably be running it during SVR, and we'll gladly give feedback afterwards.

-Guy