Lack of passion in scouting

[cire]

Some kid at GLR came to scout our team and he asked me if i could "fill out this sheet" for him. I told him he's gona have to at least ask me the questions himself, or I wont fill it out at all.

Another thing that bugged me related to scouting is that the students on my team constantly pointed all of the scouts to me, even ones that were at almost every single build meeting. This disappointed me. I know they knew the answers, but maybe they werent sure on exact details or didnt want to be sociable.

Hopefully it wont be a problem at the championships!

[cire]

Another story from 2006 I thought I might add in..

Last year we seeded 11th at GLR, on Friday I realized that we may be in the top 8 so I explained to our scouting team that we needed a list in order of the best alliance choices. I decided that I was gona be the person to go up and pick our partners if we did get picked because nobody else knew what was going on. When the time for picking rolled by, there wasnt any list made so one of the parents quickly wrote down the top 24 seeding teams. I was the last person to make it to the field for alliance picking (sorry everyone). When I got there I couldnt read any of the numbers on the list and it was a nightmare, I was too frantic to start marking down teams that had already been picked and all too soon I was getting called up to be the 8th alliance leader. I was like @#$!. A nice girl nearby told me that it was ok and she told me who the next team on her list was, team 65 I believe. So i went up and asked them to be our partners. They accepted. Then I asked their person who a good team was real quickly before I picked my next partner. We lost out in quater finals (against the winning alliance).

It was probably the most Nerve racking thing ive ever had to go through (in FIRST), I didnt want to walk up there and ask for a team that had already been picked, or didnt exist in front of 1000s of people.

Moral of the story - Scouting is imporant and organize things before the regional so that you have that list made up!

[rc616]

I think that the biggest problem with match scouting is fundamentally a problem of personality. The fact is ( at least for our ( rookie ) team ) is that the people who join the robotics team are not the sorts of people who enjoy watching tedious match after tedious match. Instead they would rather either:
-Work on the robot, which is normally exciting
-Play line rider

After thinking about this, it seem obvious to me that we either need to make scouting more interesting or get some future accountants to join our team.

I don't know if other teams are having this same problem, or if it is just us.

[MGoelz]

Originally Posted by rc616

I think that the biggest problem with match scouting is fundamentally a problem of personality. The fact is ( at least for our ( rookie ) team ) is that the people who join the robotics team are not the sorts of people who enjoy watching tedious match after tedious match. Instead they would rather either:
-Work on the robot, which is normally exciting
-Play line rider

After thinking about this, it seem obvious to me that we either need to make scouting more interesting or get some future accountants to join our team.

I don't know if other teams are having this same problem, or if it is just us.

First of all, does your entire team scout? Or do you have designated people scouting? What is your process for scouting as of now?

[Cooley744]

Scouting would be soooo much easier if each team had a peice of paper with all their information on it. Then you could set up a file box that has a file in it for every team. That would be AWESOME, so instead of running around endlessly trying to find out information about 50 different teams, you could actually enjoy yourself while you scout (aka meet new ppl and enjoy the comeptition). When you need information on a team, you could just go to that file.

[AndyB]

The way scouting has worked for us is:

I designate anyone not 100% essential to the pit crew as scouters (up until we have 6 or 7). We scout all day Friday and I generally leave them about 5 matches before ours and head down to discuss a strategy with our drive team and our alliance partners. It had worked alright and I was always able to devise a list of teams based off of watching matches and reviewing the sheets that our team filled out.

For the past three years, I had always been disappointed in the lack of scouting willingness within our team... until Atlanta, 2007.

I had the opportunity to coordinate a scouting alliance while in Atlanta between us and two other Wisconsin teams. I created scouting sheets and made up an excel program where we could collaborate and review all scouting data. I reviewed all of the robots we would be facing in Atlanta by watching videos from Soap and TBA.

When the scouting started, it was ok, but after about an hour and a half into scouting matches in Atlanta, it started.

At first it was one entire team getting up and leaving, only saying that they needed a break. Then I started receiving sheets with nothing filled out except for a single comment saying "Sorry, I forgot to watch the match." Later we had both teams disappear for over 2 hours.

We brought 9 students down to Atlanta. 7 of them were either mechanical, electrical, programming, or drive team and were needed in the pits, almost all of the time. We had a scouting team of 2 students and 1 adult, scouting 6 robots for over 2 hours, gathering data, writing comments, and studying for the benefit of teams other than us.

I ended up spending hours after the event, continuing to enter in data into a computer, which was supposed to be the responsibility of another team. I was up until the morning.

First thing on Saturday, I rushed over to the other teams' pits and dropped off copies of the scouting data, I was thanked with a "Ok, is it all here?" and only heard a comment afterwards of, "We should do this again next year."

We have learned our lesson and I value my scouters much more. I guess you don't know what you have until you have nothing.

[FoleyEngineer]

One of our members came up with this system at Western, and we used it there and in the Championships to great effect...

Give each scout an equal list of teams (hopefully well under 10) and have them ONLY scout those teams. They can visit their pits (i.e. if they tip over or seem to break something), but basically they only need to watch the matches "their" teams are in.

When we get together at the end of the day for our "scouting results meeting", we create a "master" sheet of all the teams and then call out each robot's number. The person in charge of that robot gives us a 10 - 30 second "report" on them covering their offensive, defensive, autonomous and "bonus" features (i.e. ramps). They tell us if they're "tippy" or "drop a lot of tubes", etc. They really get to know each robot and have good "inside" info on them.

This works great as nobody is overburdened, and the info the scouts provide us goes beyond the basic stats. Say for example, a team scores two or three very quickly, and then goes on defense to prevent the other team from scoring. In the stats it might only show "two scored" but in reality they can score one every 15 seconds or so. Also we find out how well they do when defended vs. undefended which also doesn't usually show up in the basic stats.

Works for us!

[rc616]

Originally Posted by FoleyEngineer

Give each scout an equal list of teams (hopefully well under 10) and have them ONLY scout those teams. They can visit their pits (i.e. if they tip over or seem to break something), but basically they only need to watch the matches "their" teams are in.

That's a really good idea. Like professional sports on TV, it's hard to watch teams you don't care about. The way we did our match scouting was just having three people sit up in the stands and observe two bots each, every match. They almost never care who won or lost. However, I'll bet that if our scouts actually cared about the matches they were watching, they wouldn't mind keeping track of them.

However, it was our rookie year, and we were so much more worried about drilling holes in our robot than quality scouting... Next year will most definitely be better.

[MGoelz]

Normally, our team will have anybody sitting in the stands scout. Ideally, we have about 6 people, 1 to a robot. We make up a basic scouting sheet that has areas that we think we need information about. This year, we got into the habit of assigning each of the 6 people to a field position (Red 1, Red 2, Red 3, Blue 1, Blue 2, or Blue 3). This helped reduce confusion before each match. There were times when we had people leave the stands or stop writing the information we really wanted. There were times when individuals on our team were covering two or three robots by him/herself. I think, as we got closer to the end of the season though, more people realized how essential scouting was to our performance on the field.

Try to help them to realize that they are an integral part of the team. A lot of times, I think that scouting isn't looked upon as something glorious, but in reality, it's what prepares you for the next match, and assesses the performance of the robots. It is also good to have someone in the stands that can assess your own robot. It's much easier for a spectator to notice something that would improve your performance in a match, than it is for the drivers or coach to notice when they are out there, under a lot of pressure, and have so many things to focus on already. I think it is just really important to make the scouts understand their job is important. If they feel needed, it is more likely they will willingly and enthusiastically engage themselves in scouting.

Also, I think another way to achieve adequate scouting, is to show how it will help. It is hard as a rookie team or even a freshman or new member to the team to see the benefit of scouting. Give them a challenge to each become strategists. Encourage them to observe what's happening on the field and how you think your team will be able to compete in the next match with and/or against the other robots. It is really amazing when you start hearing all of these options and ways to prevent/outscore/overcome your opponents for that particular match. I know our team relies heavily on the scouting to know what to expect before a match.

I think that once you are able to get a few more scouting, and really encourage them, they will start to see how much they learn from scouting. At first, when I started scouting, I wasn't really sure why, or what I was doing, and I had no idea if I would enjoy it. Now I can say, I absolutely love scouting. It is part of a competition, and you learn so much about other robots and teams, and start learning in-depth differences between robots. I can now differentiate between different drivetrains, understand some of the intricacies of various arms/lifts, and most of all, I admire and appreciate every robot that takes that field, because they have accomplished something, and I'm able to learn from what they have done.

Of course, this is FIRST. You can only do so much to get them involved and can only push them so far to understand the importance of all of this. Some of it is self-motivation. If they don't have the desire to scout, then it is going to be their loss--nobody else's. They will be the ones missing out on one of the greatest aspects of FIRST: interacting with other teams and learning from experience.

[JackN]

To me, there are three keys to winning at first: Average Robot, Strong driving and scouting. Without knowledge of your opponents your drivers and coach are like fish out of water. It makes strategy impossible. Make sure your students know this, because it really gives them a reason to scout.

Our team has a very strict and traditional scouting system. Each student in the stands is assigned X number of teams. They are responsible for watching every match that their teams play. The teams they have are written on a piece of paper and when I or the other scouting captains need info on a team for a match, we go to the student who has the team in question. Each student is an expert on five to ten to twelve teams and you can confidently know the capabilities of any opponent or ally. One meeting before our first regional is devoted to going over our scouting sheet and the proper way to fill it out. This allows all of our scouts to understand and easily input information.

[234smidget]

I scout at every competition at least once if not the whole time.

Lack of passion: Like some people have been saying, assign people who are interested in scouting. If you do not have anyone on the team interested, assign people to scout so many matches then switch out with other teammates.

Knowledge: If you are unsure about someone not putting correct information on the scouting sheet then have them pair up with an older team member(one who knows the game) and be the mentor and teach them what theyu need to know

Scouting sheet: 1 TO 10 is not a useful thing to know..each person may have a different perspective on how good a robot is. have them write down bout the drive, how fast,realiable,good/bad defense/antidefense etc.

[alex1699]

note to scouts dont bother people working on the robot thats annoying some time so ask the person with there hands in there pockets look ing at the celeing haha but truly dont bother people working

[synth3tk]

Good point Alex. We never had that problem, but that is annoying when somebody is sitting around and the scouters ask me for info.

[midway78224]

we dont have a problem with this at all. the scouters we have all want to do this thats why before every season we ask we do u want to learn this year and if they say scouting then we'll teach them scouting but in some time if they dont want to do it we let them go to another community.

[Sam N.]

Solution:

A couple of your regionals are far away. It benefits the team to take people who are good at all aspects of the competition. So:

Only the best engineers can travel.
Only the best drivers can travel.
Only the best cheerers can travel.
AND ONLY THE BEST SCOUTS CAN TRAVEL TO MISS SCHOOL!

It's all about motivating people. So try not to get angry at an unenthusiastic scout, instead encourage them.

Sam