Scouting in the Offseason

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

Though you might not be able to specifically scout for the next game, here are a few things that may benefit your team as a whole in seasons to come that you can work on in the off-season:

- Improve general strategy: Make up a game. It could be a water game with jello rockets and a rollercoaster robot track, whatever. Have team members strategize through the game - think about offense, defense, robot features, maybe even draw up a design. This will prepare you and your team members for kick off by allowing everybody to think clearly, as well as encouraging respectful discussion.

- Revamp your scouting programs by analyzing how things went the last year. Outline how you thought you scouted, how you wanted to scout, and what you can improve. Commit to one concrete thing that you plan to change before the next competition season. If you achieve that, commit to another, but by going one step at a time you can really identify your problem areas and fix them.

- Run scouting on old matches, without giving any basis to scout on. Let people go with instinct, point out what they think is most important without being concerned about fulfilling a form. You can really get a natural feel for what your strategy team thinks about, and structure your scouting system to their needs.

- Last but not least, try to look critically at the role your team has played in an alliance in the past. Are you a defender? Are you on offense? Be critical of yourself, ask big questions: Are you cooperative? Can you give up your personal strategic plan for the greater needs of the alliance? How do you react with picked, or when you aren't picked? These aren't technically scouting, but the image of your team (in particular how well you work on an alliance) can make a huge difference between what teams want to work with you.

Hope that helps!